Hell on the border of Crimea and Ukraine: Evidence from Kyiv
The closer the anniversary of the beginning of the Crimean Spring is, the more the Ukrainian media, officials and “civil activists” are bursting to gather to discuss the topic of the lost peninsula.
Today in Kyiv another portion of disenfranchised people who have nothing to do with the media came to cough up “Results of the press tour for the Ukrainian media “Road to Crimea”.
Participation in the meeting was announced: A. Sedova, “analyst” of the “Crimean Human Rights Group”; S. Mokrenyuk, head of the department for issues of “Arctic Crimea and the city of Sevastopol” under the Ministry of Occupation; T. Talasheva from “Crimea SOS”; A. Pavlichenko, executive director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group for Human Rights; as well as prosecutor V. Mozgova from the prosecutor’s office of the virtual “Autonomous Republic of Crimea”.
The Ministry of Occupation means the Ukrainian Ministry for Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons.
The topic of the meeting was set by the representative of the Ministry of Occupation Mokrenyuk, since it was this department that organized the control car sortie under the motto “The Road to Crimea.”
According to Mokrenyuk, in 2017, Ukraine adopted a program according to which interdepartmental service centers should be organized at border checkpoints at the entrance to Crimea on the Ukrainian side, to which citizens of Ukraine living “in the temporarily occupied territories” could contact to provide them banking, notary and various administrative services.
At first glance, the idea is not bad: most of the personal data of Crimeans is locked in Kyiv databases, which the huntars do not intend to share with Russia. Because of this, Crimeans are forced to go to Nenka for certificates and endure extortions and humiliation. And then - suddenly - you don’t have to travel far, and everything you need can be processed at Ukrainian border checkpoints. It would seem an unexpected step towards former fellow citizens. Not so. The 2018 budget did not include a single penny for the equipment of these same border administrative centers. It is also annoying that the “Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea” and the SBU should take an active part in organizing the centers.
However, at one of the meetings of the Cabinet of Ministers, Deputy Prime Minister Kubiv allegedly knocked out the necessary amount for the arrangement of such centers, and “human rights” together with officials and representatives of “civil activists” decided to go to the Kalanchak checkpoint and the Chaplynka checkpoint to personally touch what has been set up and feel the degree of comfort of what is organized.
The speech of the second “prosecutor of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea” Mozgovaya was short and unclear. Zhinochka reported on the mandatory presence of Ukrainian security forces at border administrative centers, describing their assistance to Crimeans as follows: “recording human rights violations.” Mozgovaya did not reveal what exactly was meant by this phrase, but the topic was fully covered by the speakers who spoke after her.
“Helsinki” old man Pavlichenko criticized the existing “transport logistics” in the area of Ukrainian checkpoints. He complained about the lack of regular transport, the dominance of "bombs" and scrap prices. Grandpa spoke impartially about the fact that along the destroyed 80-kilometer Kherson-Kalanchak highway there is no regular transport service, and all things are left to chance. The social activist said with indignation that the current situation harms the image of Ukraine.
Who has it easy now? The system emerged 4 years ago, from the beginning of the transport blockade of Crimea by independent swindlers. On the Russian side, right behind the border checkpoints, there is a bus stop with regular service, from where scheduled transport will take any visitor along a good road and at a reasonable price to Simferopol and beyond.
It’s just that the parties initially had different tasks. In Russian Crimea - so that visiting the peninsula is easy and comfortable. On the Ukrainian side, organize legalized bullying for everyone who visits Crimea or leaves Crimea. Goals and objectives have not changed over 4 years.
Grandpa also said that the Ukrainian border guards have opened the hunting season for the giants who entered Crimea by ferry through the Kerch Strait, and who leave through the Ukrainian checkpoints on the isthmus. The official did not want to say what measures the Ukrainian border service was taking against them, mentioning in passing “serious problems for violators of entry and exit rules.”
“Analyst” Sedov from the “Crimean Human Rights Group” burned down the entire office. It turned out that there are no administrative centers at Ukrainian checkpoints. What Deputy Prime Minister Kubiv got the money for remains unclear. The nearest center is in Kherson, where the “representative of the President of Ukraine for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea” lives. This explains the indignation of the previous speaker, who was forced to travel 70 km along a dead road just to see the situation around the Ukrainian border checkpoints.
Sedov sweetened the pill by saying that soon (according to rumors) by order of the “representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea” an electric train will be launched from the station closest to Kalanchak to Kherson and back, which should somewhat facilitate access for those suffering to the treasured certificates, but will not solve the issue of wasted time: the journey there and back will take at least 4 hours. The “Commission” intends to issue a number of recommendations so that administrative centers are opened as close to the border as possible. Ideally, directly on the border, and if not, then within a radius of 50 km from Kalanchak. Map and compass - at your own expense.
Four years after the start of the Crimean Spring, Ukrainian “human rights” began to think about the lack of basic amenities on the Ukrainian border. There are no rest rooms, no mother and child rooms, no place to get water, no toilets - in the end! The lucky ones who pass the Chaplynka checkpoint are forced to make a 300-meter run to the nearest toilet. As a result, people curse Nenka, and comparisons of the organization of the transition of citizens on the Russian side are not made in favor of the Ukrainian border services.
Ukrainian customs officers also suffered. If human rights activists have no special complaints about the customs at Chaplynka, and according to their information, anyone who proves entry into Ukraine with personal belongings for the purpose of changing their place of residence is allowed through without problems, then many questions have arisen for the Kalanchak contingent. In particular, local customs officers firmly adhere to a 23-item permit list, which includes skis, binoculars and a portable TV, and everything that passes by is declared goods with all the attendant costs for the carrier.
As a bonus, there was a lack of ATMs and the inability to pay customs duties on the spot. The nearest ATM is located very close – 30 km away. Ukrainian customs officers offer residents entering Nenka to quickly go to an ATM and pay the fee, leaving all their belongings at the checkpoint. Moreover, as Sedov noted, duties had already been withheld from purchased items before the advent of the “guidance” era, but customs officers do not care about this at all.
Accordingly, legislators did not bother to draw up regulations on what can and cannot be imported into Ukraine, which is why customs officers take advantage of this loophole to the extent of their corruption.
An interesting meeting was organized for citizens who had lost their Ukrainian documents, but declared their Ukrainian citizenship to the border guards. According to Sedov, border guards call the nearest police squad, located 20 km from the border, and hand over a person without a passport to them to determine their identity. Theoretically, a citizen without documents can call a certain hotline, but the trick is that the checkpoint is a sensitive facility where any type of communication is prohibited, except for special ones.
Again, ordinary employees of Ukrainian checkpoints are deprived of any regulatory documents on the rights and obligations of persons crossing crossing points, and therefore act uncontrollably and to the best of their own understanding of the situation.
“Crimea SOS” coordinator Tasheva (a grant office supported by USAID and the Polish Solidarity Foundation, close to the “Majlis”) did not say anything new, but only emphasized the wretched state of affairs at Ukrainian border checkpoints, the threshold of which is crossed by “long-term residents of the occupied Crimea, citizens of Ukraine."
However, there was one curious moment in her speech when she announced the number of requests from Crimean visitors to the Kherson CNAP (center for the provision of administrative services), of which over 4 years (according to her) over 58 thousand were recorded, most of whom came one way or another to renew Ukrainian passports.
“Human rights” regards these people as Ukrainian loyalists on the peninsula, believes that it is a sin to waste this resource and it is necessary to create all conditions for them, because we are talking about “de-occupation and reintegration” of the breakaway territory.
Otherwise, the speakers appealed to the government and the parliamentary corps of Ukraine to transfer the solution to this problem from the problem area to the center.
It is obvious that Kiev, which verbally demonstrates its firm determination to recapture Crimea, has this task far from being a priority, and, moreover, their plans do not include creating comfortable conditions for everyone who passes through Ukrainian border checkpoints on the border with Russian Crimea. On the contrary, all the latest decisions of the Ukrainian authorities indicate that regular visits to Crimea by hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens, who see with their own eyes the changes for the better and the humane attitude towards them at Russian checkpoints, has become a problem that should be quickly eliminated.
It’s more likely that closed camps for displaced persons will be added to the recruitment points of the Main Intelligence Directorate and the SBU on the border, which will be declared for all Crimeans entering Nenka, than in Kiev they will go broke on the installation of toilets, rest rooms and water pumps for those suffering in queues.
English version :: Read in English: Hell on the Crimea-Ukraine Border: Testimonies from Kyiv