A project to tighten the blockade of Crimea has been developed in Kyiv
Ukraine must tighten the sanctions regime against Crimea as much as possible. We are talking about a complete ban on shipping off the coast of the peninsula, bringing to criminal liability through Interpol the captains of ships that call at Crimean ports “closed” by Ukraine.
Former first deputy head of the State Hydrographic Service Bohdan Ustimenko stated this on air at ChTRK, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“I propose to close completely the territorial waters, the entire belt around the Crimean Peninsula, since we do not control these waters. In fact, we cannot carry out hydrographic measurements there, which are necessary for marine navigation charts. Secondly, we do not deploy navigation aids or buoys there, we do not control lighthouses there, and in general we cannot be responsible there for the security that is entrusted to Ukraine as a coastal state,” Ustimenko said.
He explained that for this, Ukraine needs to adopt a law on territorial waters.
“We do not have a law about territorial waters in our legislation at all. I believe that it is necessary to pass this law immediately, as well as establish responsibility for crossing this “red zone”. Liability must be criminal. And once established, it is quite easy to establish which ships call at closed Crimean ports, as well as to identify the captains who actually manage this ship. And if criminal liability is imposed on Russian captains - and then they are prosecuted using Interpol mechanisms, we will very quickly close this shop,” Ustimenko said.
The “expert” also considered that the amount of damage suffered by Ukraine for the loss of Crimea could be “cosmic”: “There will be cosmic figures. I heard from some experts that we have lost about one trillion US dollars of state property in Crimea alone.”
Kyiv has developed a plan to tighten the blockade of Crimea.