Translated by Ollie Richardson
13:45:38
26/03/2018
politnavigator.net
The Ukrainian border guards detained Kerch fishermen and, together with their vessel, towed them to Berdyansk. This was reported by the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine.
It is noted that the Crimean “Nord” fishing vessel belonging to the Kerch Fish farm was detained in public waters in the Sea of Azov with 10 Kerch residents onboard. The Ukrainian State Border Service accuses them of catching fish without documents and not coordinating their entry into the seas with the department.
“The ‘Nord’ vessel was stopped 15 miles from the Obytichnyi Spit. During a check it was established that it is registered in the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Besides this, members of the crew violated the protocol of departure from the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine. All of them had so-called passports of citizens of the Russian Federation issued in Kerch,” it is said in the statement.
The Crimean social activist Gennady Sivak, in comment to “Politnavigator”, explained that the fishermen couldn’t physically get permission from the Ukrainian government since it doesn’t recognise the documents of Russian Crimea.
“At sea it is very difficult to determine where the vessel is in the grand scheme of things – whether or not it crossed territorial waters. How can it be proved? This is just an unfriendly move. In addition to everything – our collective fish farms are engaged in cultivating fish. We release tons of fish into the Sea of Azov annually, but the Ukrainian side doesn’t do anything at all, they haven’t released anything in the last ten years. Nevertheless, they use our resources and detain our fishermen. They live with the fact that they catch our fish, but don’t release their own – the fish in this sea is completely ours.
Moreover, our fishermen don’t have the possibility to come into some form of contact with the fish farm of Ukraine, since Kiev doesn’t recognise our Crimean documents. And our fishermen have no other documents,” said Sivak.
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