We passed our notification to P&I Clubs and Shipowners that under Law of Ukraine No 1207- VII “On securing the rights and freedoms of citizens and the legal regime of the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine” entered into legal force 09/05/2014 Crimea was determined as a temporarily occupied territory and all Crimean sea ports have been officially closed by Ukrainian authorities as per Cabinet Ministers Decree of Ukraine no 255 dated 16 July 2014.
Targeted sanctions were introduced against listed persons and legal entities along with restrictions and sectorial sanctions by USA, EU, UK, Australia, Japan, and Switzerland.
Thus, in case of visiting any ports located on Crimean peninsula vessel will be immediately blacklisting and arrested in case of visiting any Ukrainian ports on a mainland. At General Prosecutor Office of Ukraine the special department to monitor the ship’s traffic at Black Sea and investigation the criminal cases related with ship’s calls at Crimean ports have been established. At the present moment around 69 vessels which called Crimean ports since their closure have been blacklisting by General Prosecutor’s Office.
The criminal cases for calls Crimean ports commenced under p.1 Article 332-1 of the Criminal code of Ukraine for violation the procedure of entry into the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine and procedure of leaving it. The sanctions provides confiscation the vessel and up to 3 years of imprisonment for Master. As legal measures within the criminal investigation the vessel will be arrested and ship’s documents will be taken off by investigator and ship’s administration and crew will be interrogated.
Payments for the passage Kerch-Yenikkale strait
Another sanctions’ issue is the ship’s traffic at the Kerch-Yenikkale strait. After the annexing the Crimea Kerch-Yenikkale strait (waterway to the Azov Sea: ports: Mariupol, Berdyansk (Ukraine), Azov, Taganrog, Rostov-on-Don (Russian Federation) is de-facto out of control of Ukrainian authorities. The payments for the passage are collecting by the State Enterprise Kerch sea port. Now State Enterprise Kerch sea port is included into the sanctions list since July 2015.
Taking above-mentioned into consideration we may recommend Shipowners based on the above-mentioned Law and international sanctions to avoid visit Crimean ports (Sevastopol, Kerch, Yalta, Evpatoria, Feodosia).
Concerning to the payments for passage Kerch-Yenikkale strait in order to avoid sanctions we may recommend to arrange all payments for passage via ships’ agents officially registered and located at Russian coastline (Taman peninsula).
“CIS PANDI Services (Ukraine) LTD”