Committee for Economic Development
Of The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
01008, Kyiv, Hrushevskoho Str. 5
Economic Policy Committees
of the Council of Europe
member States
To whom it may concern,
Ukraine appreciates a strong support of of the Council of Europe to enhance its defense
against ungrounded and brutal invasion of Russia.
In addition to advanced ground operation, unprecedented air and missile strikes on
infrastructure and civilian objects Russian Federation executes a complete blockade of navigation
to Ukraine ports in Black Sea and Sea of Azov. This ruins Ukraine’s economy as well as deprives
civil population of access to critical cargo supplies.
Now it’s obvious that all applied sanctions have actually little impact on development of
Russian aggression, which is still in progress and due to unexpected resistance of Armed Forces
of Ukraine have already turned into an open terror against civilians, which is becoming a true
humanitarian catastrophe.
We strongly urge you to close ports of the Council of Europe member States for vessels of
the shipping companies who continue calls to port of Russian Federation, as they in fact support
economy of the aggressor and eliminate effect of imposed sanctions.
There are several reasons for that:
1. There are numerous sanctions against Russian companies and individuals, while at the
same time it’s still easy to avoid the sanction using intermediary non-sanctioned companies
or change suppliers to those who don’t care about US or EU sanctions. So, it’s not a
problem for such companies to continue business as usual and use commercial fleet for
that.
2. There are no navigation and private property security in ports of Russia after recent cases
of opening fire towards commercial vessels in Black Sea by naval fleet of Russian
Federation that was actually an act of open aggression against shipping and safety at sea.
3. Risk of seizure of foreign vessels in ports of Russian Federation as a response for EU and
USA sanctions and seizure of property of Russian officials and oligarchs.
4. Administrative control of transit cargo to Russian Federation in respect of sanctions’
compliance creates serious pressure for operational processes at ports and terminals in
addition to challenges created by Covid that can disrupt work at specific ports and terminals
in the Council of Europe member States anytime and impact stability of international trade
and economy.