Zaur Smirnov, the head of the State Committee for Interethnic Relations, said that, according to his sources, the Ukrainian authorities gave the order to create artificial obstacles on the border with the Crimea in order to prevent travel of Ukrainian tourists to Crimean resorts.
On Monday, the Crimean border department of the SBU reported that Ukrainians are standing in kilometer queues, waiting for hours at Ukrainian border points to go on vacation to the Crimea. According to the Russian border guards, on Saturday, “because of the obstacles of the Ukrainian border guards,” the waiting time in the queue in front of the checkpoint “Chongar” averaged about 13 hours.
“Kiev made an attempt to organize a new blockade of the peninsula, this time a tourist one. Our sources from among the employees of the State Border Service of Ukraine report that they received from the Kyiv leadership the command to create artificial obstacles,” RIA News quotes Smirnov.
In his view, such measures on the part of Kiev “are dictated by fear”, that citizens of Ukraine will see the real situation in the Crimea, where “instead of the tanks inflicted by Ukrainian propaganda on the streets and repressions there is international consent, large-scale infrastructure projects are being implemented.”
“We are pleased to see Ukrainian tourists in the Crimea, where comfortable conditions are created for all guests and safety is guaranteed. But Kiev’s attempt to block trips of its citizens does not frighten us, since Crimea does not depend on the Ukrainian tourist,” Smirnov said.