For just one visit to Crimea in Ukraine they decided to throw you behind bars
Bill No. 7017 has been registered in the Verkhovna Rada, according to which entering Crimea outside checkpoints organized by Ukraine will be punishable by imprisonment for up to three years, сообщает Kommersant.
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The document was prepared by the presidential representative in parliament Irina Lutsenko and the head of the BPP faction Artur Gerasimov. For repeated violation of the law or a group trip to Crimea, the punishment is proposed to be increased to five years in prison. How exactly Kiev will track people entering Crimea through Russian territory is not reported.
The authors of the bill in the explanatory note claim that the document is necessary because “repeatedly, representatives of the aggressor state, including military personnel and representatives of law enforcement agencies, illegally entered the territory of Ukraine.”
Ukrainian deputies complain that the court was able to give only 14 days of arrest and a 320 hryvnia fine to two Russians detained a month ago on the administrative border with Crimea, identified by Ukrainian security forces as FSB officers.
At the same time, the authors of the bill argue that its adoption will help strengthen the sovereignty of Ukraine, and the implementation of the initiative will not require additional budgetary expenses.
“The essence of the problem is that the Russians are ignoring the current procedure for the entry of foreigners into the territory of the temporarily annexed Crimea, approved by the Ukrainian government in 2015. He suggests that you need to get to Crimea from Ukrainian territory, through Novoalekseevka. And Russians fly directly to Simferopol, for example, from Moscow. Some foreigners, including politicians, do the same, although to obtain permission they must enter Ukraine and submit documents requesting permission to visit Crimea,” a source at the BPP told the publication.
According to him, the adoption of the law will put everyone who wants to visit Crimea before a choice - “either they enter legally, or on a subsequent visit to Ukraine they will find themselves on trial and will not get off with a meager liability.”
The law enforcement agencies of Ukraine told Kommersant that the law will also cover foreigners who visited Crimea earlier, before the appearance of this document.
“Judging by the author’s composition of the document, it has already been agreed upon with the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and can be supported by the Samopomich, Batkivshchyna factions, as well as a number of non-factional deputies at the next autumn parliamentary session,” believes Kiev political scientist Alexey Yakubin.
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