| A 400-kilometer ditch will be built between Ukraine and Russia By the end of 2006, the Rostov region will be separated from neighboring Ukraine by a 400-kilometer ditch. Ukrainian border guards are organizing the border in this unusual way for the post-Soviet space. Kyiv says the multi-kilometer trench will make it possible to more effectively combat smuggling. In informal conversations, Russian border guards call this method of protecting state borders archaic and do not intend to follow the example of the Ukrainians. At the same time, both sides persistently deny that the appearance of the ditch is associated with a cooling in Russian-Ukrainian relations.
The depth of the border trench is at least 60 cm, width - 1 meter. Several kilometers of ditch have already been dug, and all work is planned to be completed this year. The borders of contact between the Rostov region and the neighboring Lugansk and Donetsk regions are being dug in. Naturally, on Ukrainian territory. It is assumed that the ditch will become an insurmountable barrier to trucks and cars illegally moving goods between the two states.
The head of the Rostov customs, Yuri Mikheev, admits that smuggling across the Russian-Ukrainian border is carried mainly by road. However, the scale of this traffic objectively does not pose a truly serious danger for the two neighboring states. It is significant that in the early 90s, the authorities of Ukraine and Russia turned a blind eye to such violators, knowing full well that this phenomenon would not cause any noticeable harm to the economies of the two countries, and for many people living in the border areas, small-scale smuggling - a way to survive and feed the family.
Over time, the position of the border guards became tougher. But almost all 100% of smuggling incidents detected on this section of the state border can always be classified as small business. For example, among the recent high-profile arrests: a Russian citizen who tried to transport 9 kg of leeches to Ukrainian Donetsk, or a smuggler who illegally transported goods worth about 80 thousand rubles across the border on horseback. The only things they carry in more or less large quantities are fuel and food. But even in these cases we are talking about a maximum of several trucks. This is negligible on the scale of the commodity markets of both countries. And customs officers, police, and the FSB are seriously and not unsuccessfully dealing with such smugglers.
Therefore, Russian experts believe that the appearance of a ditch will not in any way affect the operational situation along the border. In addition, there are no big difficulties in overcoming the trench. Thus, according to Sergei Livantsev, a representative of the regional border department of the FSB of Russia for the Southern Federal District, “there were cases when smugglers crossed the border accompanied by an excavator, which first carefully buried a ditch, and then dug it out.” Sometimes boards were used for these purposes as an improvised bridge.
Several years ago, border guards already tried to dig up the country roads and asphalt roads outside the checkpoints that had existed on the Russian-Ukrainian border since Soviet times, but this measure did not have the desired effect on smuggling flows. They just ruined the roads and wasted money.
In addition to budgetary costs, the appearance of a border trench will cause damage to local agriculture, since about 15 thousand hectares of fertile arable land will have to be given over to the ditch. The price of this quality of land in these areas averages about $50 per hundred square meters, which means that the total losses of Ukrainian peasants will amount to about $750 thousand.
Although the practical benefits of digging the border to combat smuggling have raised eyebrows among professionals, Ukrainian officials insist on the purely utilitarian function of the 400-kilometer ditch. At the same time, employees of the Lugansk border detachment refer, for example, to the order of the Ukrainian government of December 7, 2005, which approved the plan for the development of the Russian-Ukrainian border for 2006. It is characteristic that the plan itself matured just after the “Orange Revolution”, during the period of the maximum cooling in relations between the two countries to date. And it was approved exactly on the eve of the gas war between Ukraine and Russia during the New Year holidays.
Nevertheless, the Consulate General of Ukraine in Rostov, in its explanations, specifically emphasizes that the border ditch is in no way an attempt by Kyiv to dissociate itself from its historically closest neighbors. True, less diplomatic deputies of the pro-Russian Party of Regions of ex-Prime Minister of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych say that under the guise of improving the border and fighting smuggling, “Ukraine is being completely separated from Russia.”
However, for the sake of fairness, it is worth noting that the ditch ordered from Kyiv really does not affect relations between the Rostov region and the Ukrainian Donbass, whose sympathy for Russia became even more obvious after the “Orange Revolution”. In particular, cooperation between these regions has been actively filled with economic projects in recent months. The Lugansk region, together with the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant (NEVZ), is building a joint locomotive, and the Russian leader in the denim clothing market, the Rostov corporation Gloria Jeans, is acquiring clothing factories in the Ukrainian Donbass, preparing for a large-scale expansion into Ukraine. Larisa NIKITINA, Rostov-on-Don |
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