President Vladimir Putin has signed a law, which authorizes the government to establish navigation rules for foreign-flagged ships in Russia's internal maritime waters. The document is published on the official portal of legal information, News.Az reports citing TASS. 

"The rules of navigation of foreign-flagged vessels in the internal maritime waters of the Russian Federation are established by the Russian government taking into account security and defense interests of the state and ensuring the protection and preservation of the marine environment," the law says.

According to the document, while sailing in internal sea waters foreign-flagged ships must comply with the legislation of the Russian Federation and relevant rules.

The law also introduces changes to the Code of merchant shipping. According to the previous version, the customer and the contractor of the icebreaking assistance of the vessel provided by the ships of the nuclear icebreaker fleet in the waters of the Northern Sea Route, and (or) other services necessary for the purposes of merchant shipping, could conclude long-term contracts for the provision of paid services for the escort of the vessel and other services if a contractor provides these services on a systematic basis. The law excludes the word "nuclear" from the description of icebreaking ships. In addition, there is a new clause according to which the abovementioned services are provided by icebreaker ships that have the right to sail under the state flag of Russia.

News.Az