Will the blockade help Ukraine to recover Crimea?

All three directions – Chonhar, Kalanchak and Chaplynka – normally used for entering Crimea, remain closed for goods from mainland Ukraine. The indefinite truck blockade has entered its third day, preventing foodstuffs and other goods from reaching the peninsula. It was initiated by the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People. However, pedestrians and passenger vehicles freely cross the administrative border.

“Let us reiterate our demands regarding Russia,” we read on the Facebook page of the Presidential Commissioner of Ukraine for the Crimean Tatar People Mustafa Dzhemilev. “We are not interested in their hysterics and massive propaganda. We demand that they do the following:

♦ Release Ukrainian political prisoners who are kept under arrest in Crimea and in Russia: Akhtem Chiygoz, Mustafa Degermenji, Ali Aranov, Tair Smedlyayev, Oleksandr Kostenko as well as Nadia Savchenko, Oleh Sentsov, Oleksandr Kolchenko, Hennadii Afanasiev, and others.

♦ Stop politically motivated criminal and administrative prosecutions of Ukrainian citizens in Crimea.

♦ Stop unlawful interference with Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian media, allow unimpeded entry to Crimea to foreign journalists and international observers.

♦ Lift bans on entry to Crimea imposed on leaders of the Crimean Tatar people Mustafa Dzhemilev and Refat Chubarov as well as activists of the national movement Ismet Yuksel and Sinaver Kadyrov.”

The appeal deals with the Ukrainian government as well. “The civil blockade will be a step aimed to make sure that government officials start thinking about it and promptly draft a law abolishing the so-called ‘free economic zone’ in Crimea and creating such a zone in Kherson region of the unoccupied part of Ukraine instead,” Dzhemilev’s Facebook posting reads.

In fact, the need to block the peninsula’s links with Ukraine was discussed for a long time. The Crimeans now residing in mainland Ukraine advocated cutting food supplies to Crimea themselves. The logic is that if the Kremlin occupied the peninsula, let them provide for it too. An exception can be made for passenger services, to allow people to communicate and to compare the situation on both sides of the imposed border. “Certainly, the goods blockade should be enforced. On the other hand, trains should still run on Kyiv-Simferopol and Kherson-Simferopol routes,” Andrii Senchenko said in an interview with The Day.

However, the Ukrainian government has done everything exactly the opposite way, as they cut off the passenger services to Crimea, but left the freight shipments effectively running as before. Moreover, Ukraine has not set up a body which would deal with the occupied territories even as a year and a half have passed since the annexation. The public raised these and other issues many times, but their questions always remained unanswered.

Another question is why is the food blockade launched now? What are its prospects? Will it help Ukraine to recover Crimea?

Andrii SENCHENKO, former Ukrainian MP:

“The blockade of Crimea began earlier when Ukraine cut off water supply to the North Crimean channel, then closed the ports and the airspace, while the international community imposed sanctions on the peninsula. However, unfortunately, the Ukrainian state does very little to influence the occupying power. Thus, this freight blockade, launched at the initiative of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, is a necessary measure taken by the public due to the authorities’ inaction. These actions do not aim to complicate lives of the Crimeans, but rather to increase the price of Crimea’s occupation for the aggressor state. In accordance with the Geneva Convention of 1949, it is the Russian Federation, as the aggressor state, which should ensure that the vital infrastructure keeps functioning in the occupied territory. This means that the Kerch ferry link will start working around the clock importing foodstuffs rather than military equipment to the peninsula. Also, Russian military transport ships, aircraft, and amphibious ships will now cease bringing soldiers, military equipment, and ammunition to our Ukrainian Crimea, and start importing foodstuffs. Russia has long been implementing the Northern Shipment program, bringing foodstuffs and energy products to the Far North in summer for the whole winter due to the geographical peculiarities of the region. Now they, as occupiers, will have to do the same thing in Crimea. This will dramatically increase the burden borne by the Russian budget.

“The existing difference in the prices of foodstuffs between the unoccupied part of Ukraine and occupied Crimea has never worked to improve the condition of our citizens remaining in the occupied territory. This difference supported corrupt officials on the Ukrainian side, Serhii Aksionov-led gang in Crimea and corrupt officials on the Russian side. This chain is working not only on the territory of occupied Crimea, but also as a transit route through occupied Crimea to the Kuban region. Therefore, this blockade will bring substantial losses for the Aksionov gang and the Russian budget.

“One of the activists’ demands is addressed to the Ukrainian authorities, calling upon them to immediately repeal the law on the free economic zone in Crimea, as it is entirely criminal in character and was lobbied with money and for the benefit of those who wanted to and now actually do business in the occupied territory.

“I once raised the issue of rail freight shipments, for the present effort has thwarted road deliveries only so far. We need to stop rail freight deliveries as well. Ukrzaliznytsia argues that they stopped all rail links across the administrative border between occupied Crimea and Kherson region back on December 26. It is a play on words which we have already unmasked. There is an industrial branch line near Armiansk, controlled by the Titan plant, which is owned by Dmytro Firtash. This railway joins the Ukrzaliznytsia network in Kherson region, and they use this circumstance to import raw materials and export finished products from the peninsula daily. Now they are scared, since I raised this issue in August and it made its way to many media outlets. However, we need to resolve this issue at the national level.

“Meanwhile, it is exactly the passenger service, now defunct, that should be restored. For us, it is strategically important to get people to travel and communicate so that the Crimeans did not learn how Ukraine lives from the Russian propaganda TV, but rather make it so that parents will learn from their children studying in the universities of the unoccupied territory, and all Crimeans from their friends, acquaintances, and relatives whom they will visit. The Ukrainian authorities’ policy for returning Crimea should be as follows: we, as a nation, should resist the invaders by all possible means while supporting and protecting the civil and property rights, life and dignity of our citizens in Crimea, as well as providing information support to those remaining in the occupied territory to the best of our ability.

“This blockade ought to be a government-led measure, and we need to see decisions on the blockade of Crimea taken at the national level. When asked ‘How long will this blockade last?’ I answer that the freight blockade should continue until the return of Crimea to Ukraine. How long will it be enforced by civil society activists, the Mejlis? As long as the government refuses to do its duty. I talked to Refat Chubarov, and he emphasized that the strategic objective of the blockade was return of Crimea. Of course, we have to push for the release of political prisoners now held in the dungeons of the Russian Federal Security Service, who include Crimean people of various ethnic origins. Still, we are not going to feed the occupants in Crimea.”