Crimean Residents Are Fined for Ukrainian Passports

Russian occupation authorities in Crimea started to fine residents of the peninsula for crossing Ukraine’s administrative border with Crimea with Ukrainian passports. If a resident of the Crimea does not have a Russian passport, but only a Ukrainian one, the border guards of the FSB of the Russian Federation issue a resolution imposing an administrative penalty.

This was reported on the Facebook page of Crimean Human Rights Group.

“According to the FSB, the Ukrainian passport for entry (exit) to the peninsula is invalid,” the statement said.

In particular, on 20 July, a resident of Crimea, who was returning home to occupied Yalta from Kyiv, was fined 2,000 rubles. The woman told human rights activists that she had been interrogated for an hour and a half by an FSB officer at the “Perekop 2” checkpoint opposite to Ukrainian “Chaplynka” checkpoint.

Human rights activists believe that in this way, the Russian occupation authorities in Crimea are forcing Crimean people to show a Russian passport issued by Russia in Crimea in violation of international norms as part of coercion to citizenship.

Bohdan Marusyak