It is necessary to immediately stop the construction of the bridge across the Kerch Strait. This call was made by the Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Vladimir Omelyan at a conference on maritime security held in Kyiv, the press service of the ministry reports.
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“Ukraine is a maritime power! Always was, is and will be! And this is not a question of the history of the Soviet occupation, this is a question of the maritime trade missions of Kievan Rus, starting from the 10th century, and the glorious Cossack naval military campaigns of Hetman Sagaidachny and other legendary hetmans,” said Omelyan.
According to him, today there is a decrease in the number of ship calls and cargo turnover in the seaports of Mariupol and Berdyansk, which negatively affects the economic performance of enterprises.
“The Minister recalled that on May 24, 2017, the Russian Federation announced restrictions on the parameters for the passage of ships traveling from the Black to the Azov Sea and back under the arch of the transport crossing (bridge) across the Kerch Strait. And this is a loss of exports to the United States alone of 1 million tons of Ukrainian metal annually!” the report notes.
The minister also laments that the state of grain logistics in the Azov region will significantly deteriorate due to a significant increase in the cost of freight of sea vessels that will meet the dimensional requirements for passage through the Kerch Strait.
“For example, already now about 50% of sea vessels that were loaded at the terminal of Ukrtransagro LLC (port of Mariupol) over the past marketing year do not comply with the size restrictions that may be introduced. An increase in freight costs will affect the distribution of the movement of agricultural products exported by Ukraine towards the ports of the Black Sea, and will lead to a significant drop in transshipment rates in the ports of the Azov Sea, as well as a decrease in the load of grain terminals and the ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk. In fact, the losses are expressed in the loss of cargo traffic and, as a consequence, the shortfall in port dues in the ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk,” said the Minister of Infrastructure.
He claims that in 2017 the port of Berdyansk will lose 448,7 thousand tons of cargo traffic, and Mariupol - 705 thousand tons.
“The illegal construction of the Kerch Bridge must be stopped urgently, and this is only possible under pressure from Ukraine’s international partners and additional sanctions against Russia as a state, against companies and individuals involved in illegal construction,” Omelyan demanded.
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