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Ukraine’s Right Sector group blocks mud roads to Crimea

Crimean Tatar activists and Ukrainian nationalists continue the blockade of the food flow to Crimea
Trucks parked on a blocked road heading toward Crimea AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka
Trucks parked on a blocked road heading toward Crimea
© AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka

KIEV, September 22. /TASS/. Ukraine’s Right Sector group, outlawed in Russia as extremist, has blocked several dirt roads leading from Ukraine to Crimea in bypass of the three major checkpoints.

"Our men have blocked several mud roads towards Crimea, which have so far been used to bypass border checkpoints and roadblocks," Right Sector said on its website, adding that the blockade of the food flow to Crimea was continuing under the guidance of Crimean Tatar activists and Ukrainian nationalists.

"Our reconnaissance squads and local residents have exposed and established control of several dirt roads," the website said.

On Sunday, September 20 supporters of Crimea’s former deputy prime minister Lenur Islyamov, as wel as Ukrainian parliament members and Crimean Tatar activists Mustafa Dzhemilev and Refat Chubarov launched a so-called food blockade of Crimea letting not a single truck carrying food supplies enter Crimea through the border checkpoints Chongar, Chaplinka and Kalanchak. Right Sector activists joined in the campaign. The authorities in Kiev, including President Petro Poroshenko supported the idea as an attempt to return the peninsula to Ukraine’s jurisdiction.

Crimea’s leader Sergey Aksyonov has said the Ukrainian blockade looks like a bad comedy to him, adding that Ukraine-produced foods accounted for no more than five percent of the Crimean retail market.