Report: Kiev wants Russia compensate for Kerch Strait navigation

KIEV, Jul 3 (PRIME) -- Kiev plans to demand Russia compensate 500 million hryvnas, or about U.S. $20 million of losses that Ukrainian ports will suffer from Moscow’s plans to limit navigation through the Kerch Strait for 23 days while building a bridge across it to Crimea, the Ukrainian office of Deutsche Welle reported on July 1 quoting the Foreign Ministry.

Roman Novikov, head of the federal highway management company Taman, told PRIME that construction of the bridge’s largest sections – arch spans – will be done in a time specifically arranged for that, and that the strait will not be blocked during construction.

He said that the contractor of the bridge asked the Transport Ministry to provide specific time windows for the construction, and the ministry worked out four such windows. “Their time limit is significant, but it will not amount to 23 days imagined by some people,” he said.

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