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Kiev plans to resume passenger service with Crimea - minister

Vladislav Krikly said tenders for transport companies would be organized by local authorities with the ministry’s participation

KIEV, September 29. /TASS/. Ukraine’s authorities plan to resume passenger service with Crimea, Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure Vladislav Krikly said on Sunday.

"Naturally, we are building checkpoints. I think everything will be done in time," he said in an interview with Radio Liberty.

When asked whether it is planned to launch official passenger service with Crimea, he answered, "Without fail." He said tenders for transport companies would be organized by local authorities with the ministry’s participation.

During his trip to the Kherson region in July, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky set a task to complete the construction of checkpoints at the border with Crimea by later December 2019.

The Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, a city with a special status on the Crimean Peninsula, where most residents are Russians, refused to recognize the legitimacy of authorities brought to power amid riots during a coup in Ukraine in February 2014.

Crimea and Sevastopol adopted declarations of independence on March 11, 2014. They held a referendum on March 16, 2014, in which 96.77% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the reunification treaties on March 18, 2014. The documents were ratified by Russia’s Federal Assembly, or bicameral parliament, on March 21.

Shortly after Crimea’s reunification with Russia, air service between Ukrainian cities and Simferopol was stopped. In late December 2014, Ukraine’s National Security Council imposed a ban on regular air and railway passenger service with Crimea.