Ukraine's sanctions policy towards Crimea requires “complete reset” – expert
That’s according to Valentyna Samar, editor-in-chief at the Center for Journalistic Investigations, who spoke at the inaugural forum of the Crimean Platform expert network, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.
She noted that Crimea still enjoys the status of a free economic zone, so the greatest violators of Western sanctions on the peninsula are Ukrainian businesses and Ukrainian oligarchs.
"Ukraine, Ukrainian businesses, and Ukrainian oligarchs are the biggest violators of Western sanctions in Crimea. In 2014, the Ukrainian authorities applied a free economic zone regime to Crimea. The law allows Ukrainian businesses to do whatever has been prohibited by Western sanctions, including investing in Crimea, opening businesses, buying corporate rights and other assets, extracting oil and gas, and working in those sectors of the economy that are covered by EU and U.S. sectoral sanctions," Samar said.
According to her, in early July, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine repealed the law on the free economic zone, "but this shameful page hasn’t been turned because the President of Ukraine “is yet to sign or veto this law.”
"That is, the situation is suspended, while law continues to work," the expert stressed.
In general, she believs, Ukraine's sanctions policy requires a complete reboot, "starting with the development and adoption of a new law on sanctions, verification of sanctions lists, creation of a single state register of persons subject to sanctions, creation of a sanctioning body and a government network of sanctions policy."
According to Samar, the expert group, which includes Ukrainian researchers and experts on Crimea issues, including economists, international lawyers, scientists, investigative journalists, has been monitoring the developments in economy, demography, colonization, and militarization of Crimea for more than seven years, since the onset of occupation.
Among monitoring results is the creation of unique databases on ships and aircraft violating law. Experts are also studying schemes of sanction circumvention and corruption-related dealings in Russia. Among the experts are co-authors of the law on resetting the law on sanctions policy.
The purpose of the experts' research work, the editor-in-chief emphasized, is to look into the effectiveness of Crimea sanctions, analyze Ukraine's sanctions policy, and inform the government and the general public on the results of the study.
As Ukrinform reported earlier, 32 countries have already confirmed their participation in the inaugural summit of the Crimean Platform.
The Crimean Platform is a new consultative and coordination format initiated by Ukraine to improve the international response to the occupation of Crimea, respond to growing security challenges, increase international pressure on Russia, prevent further human rights violations, and protect victims of the occupation regime, as well as achieve the main goal, which is putting an end to the occupation of Crimea by Russia and ensuring that Ukraine regains control of the peninsula.
The Platform is expected to operate at several levels: heads of state and government, foreign ministers, inter-parliamentary cooperation, and expert network.
Officially, the Crimean Platform will be launched at its inaugural summit in Kyiv in August 2021.
im
