Putin says it has been difficult to find a contractor to build the Kerch Strait Bridge
On the 14th of April, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the Kremlin has found a company-contractor that agreed to undertake the construction of a Crimean bridge, albeit with great difficulty. “I have to honestly say that usually there are a lot of companies interested in such projects. In this case, we had great difficulties finding a company that agreed to implement the project,” Putin said during a phone interview.
According to Russian media, LLC Stroygazmontazh will build the bridge spanning the Kerch Strait. The company is owned by Arkady Rotenberg, a man reputedly close to President Putin. In January 2015, Rotenberg stated that participation in construction of this object has resulted in full isolation of his company from the West because of imposed sanctions.
As previously reported, in December 2015, Russian banks in Crimea were disconnected from the service of Visa and MasterCard, namely Genbank, Krayinvestbank, Verhnevolzhskiy, Sevastopol Marine Bank, Inresbank, and Mosoblbank, whose shareholders are Arkady and Boris Retenberg and against which sanctions have been imposed.
Anti-Russian sanctions were imposed in several stages by the USA, the European Union and some other countries such as Australia, Japan, Canada and Norway in 2014. After the annexation of Crimea, the USA and the European Union imposed personal sanctions against Russian and Ukrainian citizens involved in undermining the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Economic sanctions were imposed in the summer of 2014 after Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine, in Donbas.