Russia threatens to close the Azov Sea to Ukrainian vessels
A member of the Committee on Defense and Security of the Federation Council Frants Klintsevich commented on Facebook the detention of 15 ships by Ukrainian border guards for visiting ports of Crimea, calling the situation absurd.
“This is clearly an absurdity. And it doesn’t matter if we are talking about Russian ships or ships from foreign governments, both completely legally entered ports in the Crimea,” he stated.
According to him, Kyiv is provoking Moscow to respond. The senator stressed that Russia “literally in minutes” can block the Azov Sea for any vessel belonging to Ukraine.
Klintsevich believes Ukraine itself is abandoning the agreement regarding the Azov Sea, and that only Ukraine will suffer for this.
Recently, the Ukrainian State Border Service announced the detention of 15 vessels for visiting Crimean ports. “Altogether 15 ships were detained and are in the ports of Berdyansk and Mariupol. Part of them are seized, for the other part appropriate legal action continues,” said the department.
The Ukrainian border guards noted that they are monitoring overall 940 “offender vessels,” a large part of which serve the “occupied ports.”