Now, that’s what you call a role reversal. The government of Ukraine has warned Israeli citizens that visit Russian occupied Crimea and companies that work on the peninsula without permission from the Ukrainian government that it may impose sanctions on them, the Ukrainian Embassy in Israel said in a statement on Monday.
The full statement reads (verbatim):
“Recently, the Embassy receives the information about the facts of the entry of citizens of Israel in the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea in violation of the requirements established by the legislation of Ukraine and their business activity in cooperation with the illegal authorities of Crimea without a permit from the Government of Ukraine.
“The Embassy states that such actions are considered as the violation of the Ukrainian legislation, in particular the Law of Ukraine ‘On ensuring the rights and freedoms of citizens and legal regime of the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine,’ as well as contrary to international law, in particular the provisions of the UN General Assembly resolution A / RES / 68 / 262 ‘The territorial integrity of Ukraine’ dated 27.03.2014.
“In the case of the continuation of such actions, the relevant information will be transmitted to the competent authorities of Ukraine to further bring to justice perpetrators of violations of the current legislation. It will be also considered the inclusion of the relevant Israeli companies to the list of legal entities, which are subject to special restrictive measures (sanctions).”
Crimea was part of Russia until 1954, when Ukraine born Communist Party chief Nikita Khrushchev transferred the Crimean region, along with Sevastopol, to Ukraine’s jurisdiction.