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UN says received letter calling to end blockade of Crimea

Deputy speaker of the Crimean parliament asked the UN chief for an independent investigation into the blowing up of power transmission line pylons

UNITED NATIONS, December 31. /TASS/. The UN Secretariat confirmed on Wednesday it has received a letter from deputy speaker of the Crimean parliament Remzi Ilyasov voicing concerns about the peninsula’s blockade.

An associate spokesperson for the UN secretary general, Vannina Maestracci, declined to comment on the possible further steps of the organization in this regard.

In the letter handed over to the UN Secretariat on Tuesday, Ilyasov, who heads the interregional public movement "Crimea", asked the UN chief to pay attention to the blockade of the Crimean Peninsula by radical groups that has lasted for over two months. He also called for an independent international investigation into the blowing up of power transmission line pylons.

He underscored that the policy of blockade for Crimea "grossly violates the generally accepted principles and norms of international law, reflects disregard by the Ukrainian authorities for such human rights as the right to health, to education, to labor, to access to cultural goods and other economic, social and cultural human rights."

Ilyasov expressed confidence that the crimes are committed in particular because "none of the organizers or accomplices of those who unleashed the civil war in Ukraine has been brought to account for tens of thousands of innocent victims."

Over the past two weeks, power was carried to Crimea through one of the four lines from Ukraine. Starting from Wednesday, power supplies from Ukraine were completely stopped, Crimea’s fuel and energy minister, Svetlana Borodulina, said.