Crimean authorities invite foreign journalists to visit the construction of the Kerch Strait Bridge
At the media forum "Open Crimea: With My Own Eyes”, the Kremlin-controlled Minister of Internal Politics, Information and Communications of the Crimea, Dmitry Polonsky, urged foreign journalists to see for themselves that the construction of the Kerch Strait Bridge is "not fake", Crimean News Agency reports.
"You know that one of the most common false stories lately is that there is no Crimean bridge, and all that is in the media space is Photoshop and pictures. Those colleagues who agree to go to the east of the Crimea will see with their own eyes the scale of the project, and how much effort Russia has put in so that the bridge will be built, " Polonsky said.
The Kremlin-controlled authorities regularly invite representatives of foreign countries to visit the Crimea, seeking to legalize the "Russian" status of the peninsula as a result.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine previously stated that travel by foreign politicians to the Crimea does not have official status. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry published an appeal on July 25 warning foreign citizens and stateless persons against illegal trips to the Crimea.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke of the need to build a bridge across the Kerch Strait in March 2014, immediately after the annexation of the Crimea. It was promised that the bridge would be built by 2018, and put into operation by the summer of 2019.
The Info Centre "Crimean Bridge" reported that the total cost of building a bridge across the Kerch Strait from Russia to the Crimea would be 227.92 billion rubles ($4 billion USD).
Before that, it was reported that the Russian government has postponed the start of temporary operation of the railway section of the bridge across the Kerch Strait by a year - from December 2018 to December 2019.
The Ukrainian side withdrew from the agreement with Russia on the construction of the bridge in 2014, after the annexation of Crimea by Russia.