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The Black Sea Institute of Strategic Studies, BSNews and Maidan of Foreign Affairs monitoring group continues to publish our monitoring results of the vessel violations of the Ukrainian and international maritime sanctions regarding the Russia-occupied Crimea.

If Ukraine introduces a visa regime with Russia, Moscow is likely to resort to a mirror response. However, they will look into the possible repercussions. - Oleksandr KHARA, Maidan of Foreign Affairs

The Maidan Foreign Affairs Monitoring Group and BSNews continue to publish the monthly monitoring results of violations by Ukrainian and international maritime vessels of the sanctions against the occupied Crimea.

In the course of a journalistic investigation, the monitoring group of the Maidan of Foreign Affairs and the BSNews has revealed a carefully concealed by the Russian Federation in the fear of sanctions passenger liner scheduled for the cruise route Sochi - (Novorossiysk?) - Yalta - Sevastopol - Istanbul - Sochi. In the interest of the security of information sources, the methodology and the course of the journalistic investigation are not disclosed.

The monitoring group of the BSNews and the Maidan of Foreign Affairs has summed up the results of the daily monitoring of violations of the sanctions and the occupied territories regime for December 2016.

The BSNews and Maidan of Foreign Affairs monitoring group has summed up the illegal flights of the Russian airlines to the occupied Crimea in January 2017.

The BSNews and Maidan of Foreign Affairs monitoring group has compared the number of illegal flights by the Russian airlines to the occupied Crimea in February 2017 with that in the corresponding months of 2015 and 2016.

The joint BSNews and Maidan of Foreign Affairs monitoring group has summed up the results of the daily monitoring of violations of sanctions and the regime of the occupied territory in the Crimea in October-November 2016.

The Ukrainian branch of Swiss company Risoil S. A. went public with a claim that Ukraine’s prosecutors were putting illegal pressure on it. On Feb. 7, the Security Service of Ukraine — in an apparent reference to Risoil — reported on its website that an international company seized three hectares of land worth $4 million that belonged to the state port in Chornomorsk, a city 495 kilometers south of Kyiv in Odesa Oblast.

The Maidan Foreign Affairs and BSNews monitoring Group has summed up the results of the daily monitoring of the violations of the sanctions against the occupied Crimea and the occupied territory regime for January 2017.

The BSNews and Maidan of Foreign Affairs monitoring group has compared the number of illegal flights by the Russian airlines to the occupied Crimea in October-November 2016 with that in the corresponding months of 2014 and 2015.

The "Maidan of Foreign Affairs" and BSNews monitoring group has conducted a special investigation of the vessel offenders related to Turkey. According to the results of the special investigation, of the 276 vessels-offenders that have called at the ports of Crimea between the beginning of the annexation on March 18, 2014 and December 1, 2016, 68 vessels operating under different flags are related Turkey according to the registration of the ship owner and/or operator. That represents 24.6% of the total quantity.

The monitoring group of the Maidan of Foreign Affairs and BSNews present to our readers the "black list", or rather, the complete database of ships that in violation of the Ukrainian legislation and the international sanctions, docked at the ports of the occupied Crimea since its annexation, i.e. from March 18, 2014 to August 15, 2016.

Melinda HARING, editor of UkraineAlert at the Atlantic Council. Five days after release of Crimean journalist Andrii Klymenko’s report in March 2015— Human Rights Abuses in Russian-Occupied Crimea — Russia’s Federal Security Service charged him with challenging the annexation’s legitimacy and threatening Russian sovereignty. Under Article 280 of Russia’s criminal code, Klymenko faces up to five years in jail...

According to Maidan of Foreign Affairs, more than 216 foreign trade vessels entered the occupied seaports of Crimea since the occupation. Russia is the top violator of the sanctions regime on this annexed territory of Ukraine: 101 Russian vessels account for 46.75% of the total number of violators. Russia is followed by Turkey with 52 vessels or 24.14%, Greece with 28 vessels or 13%. Overall, vessels registered in these three states that have entered Crimea since the time of annexation make 83.8% of the total number.