On the morning of July 1stat the entrance to the bridge Crimea a long queue of Russian tourists was formed who wanted to reach the occupied peninsula by car to spend their holidays. With the Russia increasingly isolated from the rest of the world and the disruption of connections planes With many countries, Russians have few options for a beach vacation. For them the Crimea has always been one of destinations tourist more popular, even if this year tourism is not registering large numbers: there are almost 5 times fewer vacationers than before the start of the war. But despite the fact that the peninsula is one of the hot fronts of the war, where they are heard almost every day explosions and they fall drones and the west and north of the peninsula they are excavated from trenches, a number of tourists nevertheless arrived. Industry representatives explain that the security concerns some holidays have taken a back seat because the war has not yet seriously affected the region. And this year it is the only tourist destination in Russia where hotels have lowered their prices and are offering discounts.
According to the Russian political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky this flow of Russians towards the Crimea fuels a sort of “suicide tourism”, as if the vacationers were not aware of the danger they incur when going to the peninsula. Due to hostilities, planes do not fly in Crimea and the number of trains is limited, and so the car has become the most convenient way to reach the coast of peninsula. But after a truck exploded on the bridge last October, security has been tightened and a inspection procedure of all vehicles entering the bridge. Since the flow of vacationers has spilled over the peninsula, checkpoints are no longer able to keep up with the controls. The queue was growing and on 3 July the traffic jam of waiting cars reached 13 kilometres.
Tuesday the Russian president Vladimir Putin he raised the issue during a meeting with government officials. The head of the ministry of transport it warned that the load on the Crimean bridge will increase by the weekend and peak on July 16-17. He proposed using two large landing ships to transport the Automobileseach of which can carry up to 40 vehicles (they would be ready to be supplied by the defense minister Sergei Shoigu). Putin and the governor of Krasnodar (the region where the bridge to the Crimea) have proposed to direct the flow of tourists through the “new regions” of the Russia, that is, the annexed territories of Ukraine. According to the governor, for the Russians “it will be a source of pride to travel through the new Russian territories”.
The problem is that the corridor that the Kremlin proposes to use pass by Mariupol e Melitopol is one of the main objectives of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. For example, on June 22, the Ukrainian Armed Forces damaged the bridge connecting the Crimea and the region of Kherson with a missile attack. To the July 3rd the bridge had been repaired, but the Ukrainian army regularly attacks military targets in settlements located in this “land corridor”: Akimovka, Melitopol, Berdyansk. As Russian and Western analysts suggest, it is important that Ukraine cut or at least restrict the “land bridge” to the Crimea as part of his counteroffensive.
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