The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine forbade foreign economic activity of the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping and its Ukrainian branch – the Maritime Register of Shipping in Ukraine on the territory of Ukraine by orders No. 286 and No. 287 on March 2. These structures have their own branches in all large Ukrainian ports, therefore, such prohibition can influence directly a situation with a domestic marine complex. The prohibition is performed on the representation of Military prosecutor’s office of the Southern region of Ukraine which is in Odessa and which among other things runs the matters connected with the occupation of the Crimea. Therefore it is simple to guess the basis of such prohibition; in the last three years Russian federal unitary enterprise bore responsibility for technical supervision of port objects, the shipbuilding and ship-repair companies, merchant vessels which were illegally taken away by the Russian authorities from the Ukrainian owners in the Crimea. Also now dozens of Ukrainian workers of the Russian register in marine regions of Ukraine, who are specialists of high level and who had given years of honest work to the marine economy became hostages of illegal actions of the Russian employers. Unfortunately, the Russian register in the Crimea has set the political tasks of the Russian Federation power above the right of the owner and safety navigation requirements, and now it will be known by the marine community of the world.
Maritime registers work in the sphere of world navigation successfully only in the conditions of their faultless reputation, and today the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping obviously loses such reputation.
The Maritime Telegraph edition office addressed to the director of Regional Governance of the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping in Ukraine Alexander Panibot for comments. He said that they didn’t know about such order of the Ministry.
“I hear it for the first time. We work in the normal way. This order doesn’t apply to us because we aren’t engaged in the foreign economic activity. We work in Ukraine so nobody has forbidden our activities. Everyone is at their workplaces. Sberbank was sanctioned too … I have nothing to comment here”, – Mr. Panibot emphasized.
