In Kyiv they calculated: despite sanctions, 600 foreign ships entered Crimea in two years, including 90 from the EU
Over the past two years, more than 600 foreign ships have entered Crimean ports, despite Western sanctions.
This is stated in a report by the Ukrainian Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
The document notes that to date Ukraine has not prosecuted a single captain or owner of the vessel.
On June 16, 2014, a few months after Crimea joined the Russian Federation, Ukraine closed the peninsula to international shipping. Subsequently, the EU and the United States also imposed sanctions that prohibited ships from entering Crimean ports.
“Despite this, hundreds of ships flying the flags of different countries continue to enter the peninsula,” the document says.
As noted, information about these vessels was collected by a number of governmental and non-governmental organizations.
According to data collected by the Ministry of Infrastructure and the non-governmental organization Maidan of Foreign Affairs, as of June 2016, 602 ships entered Crimean ports.
It is also noted that most of the violating vessels have Russian registration or flag. At the same time, a large number of European ships continue to trade with the peninsula, despite the sanctions.
Thus, over the past two years, 24 vessels entered Crimea under the flags of EU countries, 43 vessels were registered in the EU, and another 23 belong to beneficiaries from the European Union.