In the first half of 2023, the Russian occupiers repeatedly announced some “prospects for passenger navigation” to the occupied Crimea from Berdyansk. These transportations, unless, of course, taking into account the military component of the aggressor’s acts, looked utopian, at least due to the lack of passenger traffic.
However, as the invaders themselves are now forced to admit, there is simply nothing to send them from Crimea to Berdyansk even for a propaganda picture.
Out of the five laid down and two fully built “Kometas” suitable for modern passenger transportation under the control of the aggressor in the Black Sea area, only one “Kometa” out of five laid down and two fully built, which was “launched” in 2018 by the then prime minister of Russia, the infamous Dmitry Medvedev, is now more or less on the move.
This ship, equipped with a German “MTU” engine, is used by the owner based in Novorossiysk for Caucasian transportation, and her “sister” is located in the occupied Sevastopol, which, due to sanctions, “has been supplied with an adapted Chinese engine”.
And in 2022, and in 2023, this “Crimean” “Comet” did not go into illegal navigation, despite a public lie about this personally to the Kremlin dictator from the Russia’s Deputy minister of transport Andrey Kostyuk.
Theoretically, the Russian occupiers can imitate the launch of a ferry from Kerch to Berdyansk, but for this they will have to remove it from the illegal Kerch crossing, which is used to the maximum to ensure the grouping of the aggressor’s troops in Crimea. Thus, the occupiers’ “Azov promises” have become too obvious for them to be fake.
