Hi everyone, I wanted to update you on a specific project I was asked to assist with at International Mapping regarding the Russian-Ukrainian border. As discussed in my last post, my internship is focused on primarily drafting reports on the land and maritime borders between countries, however, in this instance I was asked to review a draft that was already almost completed. While I was not involved in the original construction of the draft on the Russian-Ukrainian land border, my boss believed that my insights would be valuable for this report given that my studies have a heavy focus on Russian politics and history, as well as the fact that I study Russian linguistics at UMBC.
The draft, while including many treaties, was a little over one hundred pages long. Initially I was asked to give insights into any particular issues I found within the report, and this meant seeing if there were small issues like sentence structure and grammatical errors, but also if I felt essential information was being overlooked. I spent a substantial amount of time on analyzing the report in-depth and providing my own comments about information I felt could be further elaborated on. After I submitted my comments to my boss on the report, I was then asked to meet her in a follow-up meeting to discuss Russia’s current territorial claims in Ukraine. The main issue was that while Russia approved to bring 4 new oblasts of Ukraine into the Russian Federation, they did not clearly specify the territorial borders for two of them. These two oblasts, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, were heavily contested at the time they were brought into the Russian Federation due to ongoing fighting as part of the Russo-Ukrainian War. While at first glance it appeared these regions were brought into the Russian Federation based on their original Ukrainian borders, upon closer inspection there were no specific boundaries listed unlike with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic.
I found this case quite interesting because while I originally thought Russia would want to specifically clarify its claims in Ukraine, it seems that ulterior motives may have existed which resulted in vague language being utilized in their legislation. However, this is not necessarily just a trend unique to Russia I would argue. States may at times purposefully keep language vague in their laws in order to ensure they have as many options available as possible to reap benefits from it. Overall, this was a very interesting part of my internship and I hope that I can bring more unique stories like this to my blog in the near future.
Map of the Russo-Ukrainian War April, 2023
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