BRUSSELS, October 1. /TASS/. The EU Council has blacklisted two Russian citizens and four Russian companies involved in the construction of the railway section of the Crimean Bridge. This is stated in the publication in the Official Journal of the EU.
"On 23 December 2019, the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, announced the opening of a railway bridge over the Kerch Strait, which marked the implementation of the broader project of connecting the railway infrastructures of the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula [this is how Brussels calls the reunification of Crimea with Russia following the referendum of 2014 - TASS] and those of Russia," the EU Council stated.
In this regard, the Council considers that "four entities and two individuals should be added to the list of persons, entities and bodies subject to restrictive measures as set out in the Annex to Decision 2014/145/CFSP for their role in designing, building or using the railway infrastructure linking Russia and the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula," according to the document.
The blacklisted companies are Lenpromtransproyekt, the Berkakit-Tommot-Yakutsk Railway Line’s Construction Directorate, the Crimea Railway Federal State Unitary Enterprise, the First Crimean Insurance Company.
The individuals added to the list are: Leonid Ryzhenkin, deputy general director for infrastructure projects at Stroigazmontazh (SGM), who since 2015 had supervised the construction of the bridge over the Kerch Strait, and Alexander Ganov, general director of the JSC TC Grand Service Express, which operates railway service between Russia and the Crimean peninsula.
All persons involved in the blacklist are banned from entering the EU, their assets in European banks, if such assets are found there, are subject to freezing. European businesses are also prohibited from doing business with listed companies.
The 19-kilometer Crimean Bridge, the longest one in Russia and Europe, links the Taman Peninsula (Russia’s Krasnodar region) and the Kerch Peninsula (Crimea). The bridge consists of two parallel rail and car roads built together. It ensures an uninterrupted transport link between Crimea and other regions of Russia. The vehicle section of the bridge opened in May 2018.
The construction of the railway part of the bridge was officially completed on December 18, 2019. On December 23, Russian President Vladimir Putin took part in the official opening ceremony of the crossing.