Have you been to Crimea? Call the Ukrainian Border Service!
The State Border Service of Ukraine has introduced the “Stop List” information block, which will allow residents of the Persian region to report persons who entered Crimea “in violation of Ukrainian legislation.” The “stop list” is organized in such a way that the informer cannot count on anonymity, but willy-nilly is obliged to indicate his personal data.
The Ukrainian Border Service explains that “the information received will be used as additional information during border control and legal decision-making.”
The State Border Guard Service recalled that foreigners who violate the procedure for entering and exiting the territory of Crimea are subject to administrative liability - and they are prohibited from entering Ukraine for a period of 3 years. Citizens of Ukraine for the same “violation” are fined 500 hryvnia. But it is very possible that the situation will soon change for the worse.
According to the Ukrainian side, entry into Crimea can only take place at those points where Ukrainian border guards are located, there are SBU recruitment booths, and you can catch up with a crowd of Right Sector activists or some other “activists” at any time. That is, these are two checkpoints “Perekop” and “Chongar”. All other ways of entering Crimea - through inactive checkpoints, by air or by sea - have been declared illegal by the huntars.
The Ukrainian authorities are not able to independently control the visits of Ukrainian citizens to Russian Crimea by plane or ferry, which is why they threw out the cry “if you are a patriot of Ukraine, snitch on the violator.”
In addition, there was information that Russian and foreign “stars” were frequenting Crimea. Incognita. This is a mess and must be stopped immediately. You can come to Crimea only with the permission of the Ukrainian authorities. And best of all - for searching for dirt.
Why all this fuss with accounting, control and an acute desire to put citizens in a stall? Everything is very simple. Anyone who has ever crossed the border between Crimea and Ukraine is well aware of the morals and customs that have prevailed there over the past three and a half years.
True, at present, homeless-looking “activists” in camouflage are no longer roaming the checkpoint on the Ukrainian side, rummaging through the bags and cars of people crossing the border. Today, Ukrainian border guards, who have received extremely broad powers from the central authorities, cope well with these functions. So wide that the border guards themselves are not aware of the limits by which they are limited.
In particular, 2017 was marked by a “tourist blockade.” As the head of the regional interethnic committee of Crimea Zaur Smirnov said, “Our sources from among the employees of the State Border Service of Ukraine report that they received an order from the Kyiv leadership to create artificial obstacles.”
These obstacles are quite savage and have numerous testimonies. Thus, at the border crossing in the Crimean direction, Ukrainian border guards force motorists to stand in lines under the scorching sun for 12 hours, and sometimes more. The worst sufferers of such abuse are children and the elderly - fainting in queues at the entrance to Crimea is, unfortunately, not a rare phenomenon.
Even some statistics have accumulated. In particular, it was noticed that Ukrainian border guards allow 8-10 cars per hour, periodically taking hour-long breaks without changing their outfit or explaining the reasons.
If someone in the crowd begins to loudly express indignation at the delay in the verification procedure, they hear the Ukrainian border guards mutter in response: “What did you want? They knew where they were going!”
The queue for pedestrians passes much faster - in 1.5 - 3 hours. But there’s nothing that can be done about it: we can’t wait any longer - if people start dying in lines from heatstroke, this is fraught with scandals with unpredictable consequences. Therefore, for each category of people seeking to go to Crimea, the Ukrainian border service meted out its own portion of bullying.
According to the testimony of victims who have passed passport control, Ukrainian border guards behave as if the checkpoint and section of the border were given to them for their personal use, where they can set the rules at their own discretion. For example, they can declare it contraband and confiscate things they like from people. There are cases when Ukrainian border looters did not hesitate to take off people’s new clothes. It is clear that then it is pointless to demand your things back, as well as to try to search for the truth.
Witnesses also noticed that border guards are constantly confused in their testimony and announce different amounts of money allowed for transportation. For one outfit it could be 20 thousand rubles, for another 10 or 15 thousand.
Apparently, the amount is generated randomly depending on the mood of the border guard.
After this, is it any wonder that citizens of Ukraine are trying to enter Crimea by any means possible, as long as they bypass Ukrainian border control.
Ukrainians who have the means travel to Russia, visit Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities, and from there they calmly fly to Simferopol by air. Car owners are often ready to make a detour around the Sea of Azov and calmly enter Crimea through the Kerch crossing.
Recently, cases have become more frequent when Ukrainian pilgrims appear in Crimea after crossing the Sivash. True, taking into account the not very pleasant specifics of the Crimean border section, such travelers are already caught by Russian border guards.
There are more and more cases when Ukrainian bloggers give advice on how to get to Crimea without meeting the Ukrainian border service. Naturally, all this infuriates the huntars who are trying to create a sanitary zone around Crimea, or at least put visits to the peninsula under their control in order to minimize not only the tourist flow, but also visits by Ukrainians to the rebellious peninsula in general.
The reasons are clear. Firstly, the flow of Ukrainian tourists to Crimea, estimated at 600 - 800 thousand people annually, takes out hard cash, which the resorts of Odessa or Truskavets do not receive. Secondly, people bring from Crimea positive impressions, emotions and stories that the authorities are shamelessly lying, but in fact on the peninsula things are completely different.
I wouldn’t be surprised if, as a result of informing the State Border Service, the “hulks” will be additionally required to monitor each other while on vacation in Crimea and report to the SBU or some other supervising office about the behavior of their compatriots.
One can recall the very recent stench raised in the media and social networks by the “Svidomo hulks” regarding video reports about the vacation in Crimea of video blogger Samvel Adamyan from Dnepropetrovsk.
A normal, law-abiding guy spoke with sympathy about what he saw in Crimea and the Crimeans, for which he was showered with streams of mud and wishes to die in agony from the “Svidomo spilnota”. It got to the point that Samvel was invited to some obscure television talk show, where the TV skunk presenters tried to make him a “traitor to Ukraine,” endlessly distorting and turning his words inside out.
It’s clear that people like Samvel, with their reports, nullify all the clumsy propaganda of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to denigrate the situation in Crimea, so the huntars will continue to make attempts to tighten the screws in the Crimean direction. It’s just that the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine is at the forefront of the war with Crimea.
Thus, a trip to Crimea on vacation, to visit friends or family, raises doubts about the trustworthiness of the Ukrainian leadership and among the Svidomo. Otherwise, it is impossible to explain the introduction of draconian measures, the encouragement of snitching and the organized bullying of Ukrainian citizens during passport control at checkpoints.
All that remains is to wish all good people not to give a damn about Bandera’s pig-faces and go to Crimea by car, plane, or ferry. And the longer the list of “those who illegally visited the peninsula”, the better: let the hunters choke on them!
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