How Russia can respond to the nationalization of its embassy in Ukraine

Russia may terminate the land lease agreement and nationalize the building of the Ukrainian embassy if Kiev takes a similar measure, Lyubov Stepanova, a lawyer at the Kazakov and Partners law firm, told Vedomosti.

Ukraine’s actions are contrary to the provisions of Art. 45 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 (both Russia and Ukraine are parties), according to which, in the event of a rupture of diplomatic relations, the host state must respect and protect the premises of the mission, together with its property and archives, even in the event of an armed conflict, she pointed out .

According to Art. 1 of the same convention, a representative office is understood as a building or part of a building used for the purposes of the representative office, as well as a land plot serving this building, the lawyer notes. Therefore, Russia has the right to take “countermeasures,” she said. The basis for this is the resolution of the UN General Assembly in 2001 No. 56/83 “Responsibility of States for internationally wrongful acts.”

Mayor of the Ukrainian capital Vitaliy Klitschko informedthat the Kiev City Council terminated the land lease agreement with the Russian embassy. According to Klitschko, he himself appealed to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine with a request to return the property of the diplomatic institution to the property of the state.

Russia is ready to respond to such steps, said presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “Here, too, there is land under the embassy of Ukraine and so on. Obviously, appropriate measures will be taken here,” declared he April 21st.

The Russian Embassy in Kyiv has been closed for more than a year. On February 21, 2022, Russia recognized the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, which Kiev called a step towards breaking off diplomatic relations. On February 22, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced the evacuation of the staff of diplomatic missions from Ukraine. Kyiv, after the start of a special military operation, announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Moscow, the embassy in Russia was closed, and its employees were also taken out of the country.

It is important to take a break and wait for the reaction of the official authorities of Ukraine, said Dmitry Novikov, First Deputy Head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs. Klitschko, he said, exceeds his authority by making such statements. The deputy stressed that the territory of the embassy in any country of the world is the territory of another state. “If Ukraine decides to violate diplomatic immunity, then response measures will be required,” he told Vedomosti.

In accordance with an agreement between the government of the Russian Federation and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, in Moscow, the latter owns the complex of buildings of the diplomatic mission located in Leontievsky and Voznesensky lanes, Stepanova says. The land plot under it is provided to Ukraine for rent. In addition, Kyiv owns the building of the National Cultural Center of Ukraine on the Arbat, the source said.

Law enforcement practice is such that the simplest response could be to terminate the lease on the land used to house the embassy, ​​lawyer Olga Yelagina agrees. She clarifies that the land plots were provided to foreign embassies on the basis of orders from the Moscow government. And their use by other states is carried out on the basis of civil and land legislation of the Russian Federation.

Land legislation allows termination of a lease agreement at the initiative of the landlord in the event of a material breach of the agreement by the tenant, Elagina told Vedomosti. This is also possible under civil law in a judicial proceeding, in particular, on the basis of Art. 451 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation – with a significant change in the circumstances from which the parties proceeded when concluding the contract, she notes.

In modern Russia, there were no precedents for the seizure of property owned by representative offices of foreign states, political scientist and historian Alexei Makarkin told Vedomosti. But such cases are known in the past, he noted. For example, the building of the Finnish Embassy was confiscated by the Soviet authorities twice: in 1939 during the Soviet-Finnish war (after it was returned to Finland) and in 1941. During the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet authorities also seized the building in Chisty Lane, in which for many years the residence of the German ambassador was located. In 1943 the building was handed over to the Moscow Patriarchate.

“I don’t find analogies for peacetime,” the expert says. For example, even against the background of worsening relations between the countries after the transfer of the Bronze Soldier monument from the center of Tallinn to the cemetery, there were no encroachments on the location of the Estonian embassy, ​​Makarkin recalls. Despite the fact that even then there were voices demanding the removal of the embassy from the center of Moscow, no steps were taken, he stressed.

In December 2022 Grigory Karasin, Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs offered to introduce into the legislation a norm giving Russia the right to demand from the diplomatic missions of unfriendly countries to refuse to use the buildings they occupy as a response to such steps against the Russian Federation. This is how he reacted to “actually a raider seizure by the US authorities of a number of Russian consular offices in the United States” and “illegal arrest of a residence in New York and Maryland, consulates in San Francisco and Seattle, and Russian trade missions.”

The administration of former US President Barack Obama at the end of December 2016 adopted a package of anti-Russian sanctions due to “election interference” and “pressure on American diplomats” working in Russia. Among other things, Washington closed access to embassy dachas in the states of Maryland and New York, to the consulate general in San Francisco, as well as to the premises of Russian trade missions in Washington and New York.

In addition, on April 2, 2018, at the request of the United States, the Russian Consulate General in Seattle was closed. The Russian authorities declared the decision of the US government to close its mission in Seattle and five other Russian facilities that had immunity illegal.