Due to the inaction of the Ukrainian authorities, the Russian Federation continues to detain vessels that are heading to or from Ukrainian ports in the Azov Sea and in the Kerch Strait. This was stated during a speech from the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada by the head of the UKROP, MP Taras Batenko.
“A weak legislative framework, which formally allows special services of hostile aggressor country to do it in the Azov Sea, must be immediately abolished!” said Taras Batenko.
The parliamentarian has reminded that a month ago the MPs from UKROP sent to the Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman proposals on the first steps in the security situation and the counteraction to the expansion of the aggression of the Russian Federation in the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait. The plan of action of international legal, military and political nature has 11 paragraphs to be urgently reviewed at the meeting of the Military Cabinet of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. However, instead of the answer the UKROP members received a formal response stating that a number of ministries and departments were instructed to “work upon these issues”.
“The absence of an immediate and complete answer is perceived as a proof that the situation is not being controlled by the authorities and the analysis and vision of the situation around the Crimea and, in particular, in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait, is lacking,” stated the UKROP representatives.
According to Taras Batenko, during the last weeks the brazen and bold actions of the coast guard of the FBI of Russia blocking the Ukrainian Azov ports not only continued, but were expanded. Thus, from May 17 to July 10, ships and boats of the coast guard of the FBI border guard have stopped and inspected merchant ships in the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait going to or from Mariupol and Berdyansk for 63 times.
Special forces of the enemy state detained 46 vessels, 13 of which repeatedly. In the last two weeks Ukrainian ships were detained not only at sea, but also while waiting for permission to pass the Kerch Strait or from the Black to Azov Sea and vice versa. If earlier the waiting time was 1-2 hours, now it’s averagely 30 hours for Ukrainian chartered voyages. Occasionally, there are some cases when such vessels are being artificially held in front of the Kerch Strait for 38, 65, 72 and even 88 hours.
“It is inadmissible and even shameful for our state that almost all detentions take place at a distance of no more than 6-15 miles from the Ukrainian coast,” said Taras Batenko.
According to the UKROP member, the president and the government are making the same mistake as in 2014, at the beginning of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. In the fifth year of the war and during the worsening situation in the Azov Sea, Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Ihor Nasalyk talks about the possibility of resuming the joint Ukrainian-Russian nuclear fuel production and proposes to discuss this issue in Brussels.
“The letter from the Minister of Energy Nasalyk to the first deputy director of Rosatom Corporation, Kirill Komarov, on the possibility of joint production of nuclear fuel is the highest level of cynicism. In such circumstances, the minister would have to resign,” said the UKROP member.
“We demand and will demand to cut off any relations with the invader!” stressed the politician.
