Ukrainian border guards: Russians create waiting lines at the administrative border with the Crimea
On Saturday, the Russian border guard along the administrative border with the Russian-annexed peninsula created queues of cars, which were traveling to the Crimea from the mainland of Ukraine and back, as reported by Ukrinform, citing the Assistant Chief of the Berdyansk Border Guard and the head of its press service, Nelya Dotsenko.
"On Saturday, a long line of vehicles that were traveling from mainland Ukraine to the annexed Crimea formed at the Ukrainian Chonhar checkpoint. At 6 a.m. there were about 150 cars in this line, at 9 a.m. the queue was somewhat reduced but still more than 120 cars, and as of 10:30 a.m. their number remained almost the same," she said.
In addition, Dotsenko added that this time the Russian border service, at their checkpoint at Chonhar also created a line of cars that were travelling from the annexed peninsula to the mainland Ukraine.
"After all, recently, slow admittance by the occupants of cars has been only in one direction - from the mainland of Ukraine to the annexed peninsula," she said. According to Dotsenko, on Friday, Russian services processed on average 7 cars per hour, and now - about 4 cars per hour.
According to the assistant to the head of the Berdyansk border guard, a significant slowdown of admittance by Russian authorities to the Crimea is observed mainly during the weekends and holidays.
Dotsenko also reported that the queues of cars departing from the mainland of Ukraine to the Crimea also existed on Saturday at two other checkpoints - Chaplynka and Kalanchak. On that day, at the Kalanchak checkpoint about 20 vehicles were waiting to enter the Crimea, and at the Chaplynka checkpoint there were about 10 cars waiting.
As for pedestrians traveling from the mainland of Ukraine to the Crimea, there are no queues at any of the checkpoints.