Russian Railways does not want to take over the Crimean Railways – Yakunin is afraid of sanctions
Moscow - Simferopol, April 21 (Navigator, Mikhail Stamm) - Russian Railways OJSC is afraid to take the Crimean railways on its balance sheet: the company’s owners have too much property and accounts in the West that could be seized.
Subscribe to Navigator Crimea news on Facebook or VKontakte
The future ownership structure of the Crimean Railways (KZD), nationalized by the leadership of the republic after separation from Ukraine, remains unclear, writes Kommersant.
At the beginning of April, the Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Maxim Sokolov stated that in 2015 it is planned to transfer the KZD to the ownership of JSC Russian Railways. This is also what they hope for in Crimea: according to Rustam Temirgaliev, KZD should be integrated into Russian Railways OJSC and, possibly, become its structural division.
But the head of OJSC Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, told the newspaper that “the question of integrating the property of Crimea into the structure of OJSC Russian Railways is not raised now.” According to him, this will be “interaction” between two railways - Russian and Crimean.
A Kommersant source familiar with the discussion of the issue believes that the legal status of KZD may cause disputes between the government and JSC Russian Railways: “If KZD still remains an independent structure, then we will have two tariff systems, which means the cost of transportation will be higher than in the case of a single infrastructure.”
The head of the Infoline-analytics agency, Mikhail Burmistrov, explains why Yakunin is in no hurry to include Kazan Railways: this could negatively affect operations abroad and even lead to certain sanctions, such as the seizure of the assets of Russian Railways.
Russian Railways Doesn't Want to Take Over Crimean Railways – Yakunin Fears Sanctions