The sanctions drastically reduced foreign ships visits the occupied Crimean ports – study

On Friday, October 7, there is held the study presentation «The effectiveness of the international sanctions against the Russian Federation in a navigation in relation to the Crimean occupation» organized by the «Maydan of Foreign Affairs» Foundation in partnership with the international news platform Ukraine Today.

The head of the Crimean office of the «Maydan of Foreign Affairs» Foundation, Andrey Klimenko had led the presentation.

«The strategic aim of sanctions is to make much more expensive to the aggressor, the Russian Federation, to supply an annexed peninsula. Meanwhile there is another strategic goal is to make Russia to open the Crimean topic which declared closed», Klimenko said.

According to an expert, after the land shipment termination from the continental Ukraine to the occupied Crimea a maritime traffic has become the only way to supply Crimea «almost all goods», so exactly the maritime field is the most sensitive for the occupier.

«Before the occupation of Crimea there is only 3-5 per cents of the goods got to Crimea through a sea», Andrey Klimenko pointed.

According to him, the subject of a present study was the only vessels engaged in commercial operations. The monitoring data covers the period from March 18, 2014 to August 15 of the current year.

«The number of foreign ships visits the Crimean ports except the Russian Federation, has reduced dramatically over the monitoring period. The reducing is appeared from 80 in 2014 to 37 in 2016», Klimenko said.

The expert mentioned that the sanctions had forced the Russian Federation to compensate reducing shipping operations of foreign vessels by increasing the number of the Russian ships for transport to the occupied peninsula.

Photo and video material and text by Constantine Grodzinskiy.