The Ukrainian parliament voted on December 6 to terminate the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. The treaty will expire on April 1, 2019.
The parliament adopted the relevant presidential bill by 277 votes, the Interfax Ukraine news agency reports.
“In accordance with Article 70 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, termination of the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation frees Ukraine of any obligation to implement it, and this does not affect the rights, obligations, or legal status of Ukraine that arose from the implementation of the treaty until its termination," the bill states.
The explanatory notes to the document state the continuing Russian aggression against Ukraine significantly violates most of the articles of the treaty.
The Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation was concluded in May 1997, and the parliament ratified it in January 1998.
As reported earlier, the Ukrainian parliament approved on November 26 a presidential decree on imposition of martial law in several regions of Ukraine. The decree imposed martial law in 10 regions bordering the Russian Federation, Transnistria, and the costs of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. They are the Chernihiv, Sumy, Vinnytsia, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odesa, and Zaporizhia regions. Martial law was also imposed in Ukraine’s internal waters in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait.
The reason for the imposition of martial law was the capture of a tugboat and two gunboats belonging to the Ukrainian Navy by Russian warships on November 25.
