The $3.6 billion bridge, built by a contractor owned by President Vladimir Putin’s childhood friend Arkady Rotenberg, was unveiled in May in a move to integrate the peninsula into Russia. Rotenberg was among the first Russian businessmen to be put under Western visa bans and asset freezes after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea from neighboring Ukraine in 2014.

The European Union has levied sanctions on six Russian companies involved in the construction of a bridge connecting mainland Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula.

The European Council said it has frozen the assets of six entities involved in the Crimean bridge’s construction, including two companies owned by Rotenberg — Mostotrest and Stroygazmontazh.

“Through their actions they supported the consolidation of Russia's control over the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula, which in turn further undermines the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine,” the European Council said Tuesday.

Other companies to be hit by the latest EU sanctions include a Stroygazmontazh subsidiary, a St. Petersburg-based construction firm, a shipyard involved in railway construction and a contractor that built a highway over the bridge.

Speaking in Crimea on Monday, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the annexed peninsula had completed the “unprecedented” task of being integrated into Russia’s legal, infrastructural and economic space.

“You can say that the most difficult stage has passed. We’ve entered into a more relaxed and planned mode of operation,” he said at a cabinet session in Sevastopol.

Reuters contributed reporting to this article.</s>The EU on Tuesday expanded its sanctions against Moscow to include companies that helped build a bridge from mainland Russia to Kremlin-annexed Crimea, which it says violates Ukraine's sovereignty.

The European Union said the six firms and organisations will have their assets in the EU frozen for their role in building the Kerch Bridge, which Russian President Vladimir Putin inaugurated in May.

"EU adds six entities involved in the construction of the Kerch Bridge connecting the illegally annexed Crimea to Russia to sanctions list," EU member states headlined in a statement.

"Through their actions they supported the consolidation of Russia's control over the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula," they added.

This, it said, "in turn further undermines the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine."

The Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in a Facebook post welcomed the EU move to sanction those "involved in the construction of the illegal Kerch Bridge".

Moscow meanwhile denounced a "subversive policy directed against the residents of Crimea".

The West "encourages those who are involved in the energy blockade of Crimea and persecutes those who are building civil infrastructure," foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in comments reported by Russian news agencies.

Two of the six firms and organisations identified in the EU's Official Journal are controlled by businessman Arkady Rotenberg, a close Putin ally.

The EU has also unleashed a series of sanctions against Moscow for its support for pro-Russian separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

A total of 44 entities have now been hit with EU sanctions against Russia.

Another 155 people, including several close to Putin, have also seen asset freezes and travel bans as a result of the EU blacklist.

The EU says it continues to refuse to recognise the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia, which was condemned by the pro-western government in Kiev as well as the United States and the EU, who see it as an illegal land grab.

The peninsula had been hard to reach from southern Russia with long queues of vehicles often forming to board ferries, which cannot always run in winter storms, so the easiest way across is to fly.</s>The European Union has imposed asset freezes on six Russian firms involved in the construction of a new road-and-rail bridge.

The bridge which links Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula is said to be illegal.

Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 during an uprising which toppled Ukraine’s pro-Russian president.

The West condemned the move as an illegal annexation and imposed sanctions on Moscow.

The 3.6 billion dollars bridge across the Kerch strait, part of which was unveiled by Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in May, has drawn strong rebukes from the EU which says it is a further violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty.

The six companies cited in Tuesday’s statement from the Council of the European Union include construction firms PJSC Mostotrest and CJSC VAD.

“The firms will have their assets in the EU frozen and EU persons and entities will not be able to make funds available to them.

“Through their actions they supported the consolidation of Russia’s control over the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula, which in turn further undermines the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine,” the council said.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Pavlo Klimkin, said he welcomed the additional sanctions.

“Important warning also for European businesses not to go down same slippery slope,” Klimkin wrote on Twitter.

The other companies targeted are engineering firms GPSM and Zaliv Shipyard, and construction groups SGM and Stroygazmontazh Most OOO.</s>The European Union has extended sanctions against six Russian companies in connection with their work in Crimea and the construction of a bridge to the peninsula.According to the Official Journal of the EU, the sanctions will target construction engineering company Institute Giprostroymost, Russia's largest heavy-construction company Mostotrest, engineering and construction corporation VAD ZAO, infrastructure construction firm S.G.M. Group, and shipbuilding and ship-repair company Zalyv Shipbuilding Yard, which is located in Crimea.Earlier this month, the European Council prolonged economic sanctions targeting specific sectors of the Russian economy until 31 January 2019. Apart from the companies, the bloc imposed a visa ban and an asset freeze against 155 Russian individuals.Brussels imposed punitive measures against Moscow in 2014 in response to Russia's reunification with Crimea. The primarily ethnic Russian population of the peninsula held a referendum during a violent militant conflict in eastern Ukraine and voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia. The EU and US do not recognize the result of the vote and accuse Russia of annexing the region from Ukraine.In response, the Kremlin has banned food imports from countries that have imposed sanctions against Russia. The ban has recently been extended until the end of 2019.</s>The European Union has imposed asset freezes on six Russian firms for their involvement in the construction of a new road-and-rail bridge linking Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula, which the bloc says is illegal.

Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 after Ukraine's pro-Russian president was toppled in an uprising. The West condemned the seizure as an illegal annexation and imposed sanctions on Moscow.

After the annexation, the Kremlin ordered the building of a $3.6 million bridge to link the peninsula to Russia.

The bridge, part of which was unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin in May, has drawn strong rebukes from the EU which says it is a further violation of Ukraine's sovereignty.

A statement from the EU Council, which sets the bloc's foreign and security policy, named six firms that will have their assets in the EU frozen. EU persons and entities will not be able to make funds available to them, it said.

The companies include three firms — PJSC Mostotrest, SGM and Stroygazmontazh Most OOO — controlled by billionaire Arkady Rotenberg, President Vladimir Putin's former

Judo sparring partner. Construction firm CJSC VAD, engineering firm GPSM and the Zaliv Shipyard were also named.

"Through their actions they supported the consolidation of Russia's control over the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula, which in turn further undermines the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine," the Council said.

Ukraine's foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin said he welcomed the additional sanctions.

"Important warning also for European businesses not to go down same slippery slope," Klimkin wrote on Twitter.

Russia criticized the sanctions, saying they targeted people living on the peninsula.

"This is a policy of undermining, directed against Crimea's residents," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was quoted as saying by TASS news agency.

Rotenberg brushed aside the sanctions in a social media post, saying work was underway to complete the railway section of the bridge.

"We're all proud of our work and if someone doesn't like it that's not our problem," a spokesman for Rotenberg quoted him on the Telegram messaging service as saying.</s>The Council of the European Union on Tuesday published a statement informing it had added six entities involved in the construction of the Kerch Bridge connecting the Crimean Peninsula with Russia to its sanctions list of persons and entities threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty, and independence of Ukraine.

The measures consist of an asset freeze, meaning all assets in the EU belonging to these entities are frozen and that EU persons and entities cannot provide funds to them.</s>Russia reacted furiously on Wednesday to new EU sanctions imposed on companies involved in constructing the Kerch bridge between Russia and the annexed Crimea peninsula.

The Council of the EU on Tuesday added six Russian companies to its sanctions list, citing their role in building the bridge.

“Through their actions they supported the consolidation of Russia’s control over the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula, which in turn further undermines the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine,” the Council said in a statement.

The sanctioned companies now face an asset freeze in the EU, and EU citizens and entities are barred from allowing the companies to access those funds.

The sanctioned companies are: Institute Giprostroymost, the firm which designed the bridge; PJSC Mostotrest, which has a contract to maintain the bridge; JSC Zaliv Shipyard, which built a railroad line to the bridge; Stroygazmontazh Corporation, the main construction company that built the bridge; a subsidiary of Stroygazmontazh called Stroygazmontazh-Most; and VAD, which built the roadway over the bridge, as well as access roads.

Stroygazmontazh is owned by Arkady Rotenberg, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s close associates, who is already subject to sanctions over his role in Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine.

Overall, 44 entities and 155 individuals are subject to EU sanctions related to the Crimea annexation. In July, the EU extended the sanctions.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry called the sanctioning of the six companies “deplorable.”

“Obviously the free choice made by Crimeans to reunite with Russia is haunting the European Union,” the ministry said. “Is there any alternative explanation of the fact that since 2016 the EU sanctions list has been widening by adding almost exclusively Russian citizens and organisations that are in one way or another involved in successful democratic development of Crimea and Sevastopol within the Russian Federation?”

The ministry also accused Brussels of meddling “yet once more in the domestic affairs” of Russia, and it accused Ukraine and the EU of trying to isolate Crimea following the March 2014 referendum. “One should not be surprised that Crimean residents opted … to connect their future to Russia,” the foreign ministry said.

Read this next: British far-right ‘martyr’ Tommy Robinson released on bail</s>BRUSSELS -- The European Union has added six Russian companies involved in the recent construction of the Kerch Strait bridge linking the mainland of southern Russia with the Crimean Peninsula to its sanctions list.

The decision, taken by EU ambassadors earlier this month, was published by the bloc’s Official Journal on July 31.

The EU has now frozen the assets of a total of 44 entities from Russia and Ukraine since Moscow's seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014 and its support for separatists in a conflict that has killed more than 10,300 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.

In addition, 155 individuals from both countries are subject to EU restrictive measures.

Three of the Russian companies newly included in the EU sanctions list -- Mostotrest, Stroygazmontazh, and its subsidiary Stroygazmontazh Most – are owned by Arkady Rotenberg, a businessman close to President Vladimir Putin.

Rotenberg had previously been included in the list of individuals sanctioned by the EU.

According to the bloc, Russia's construction of the 19-kilometer Kerch Strait bridge has contributed to the destabilization of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

The bridge was opened for cars and buses in May. It contains a four-lane highway and two lines of railway tracks that are still under construction. The $3.7 billion Russian construction project began in 2016.</s>Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has ordered the creation of a body to prepare a lawsuit against Russia for damages caused by separatists whom Moscow supports in the Donbas region and for its illegal annexation of the Crimea Peninsula.

"The ongoing armed aggression of Russia brings to the Ukrainian soil new immeasurable human suffering every day, infrastructure is destroyed, enterprises and economic potential of the Donbas and Crimea are destroyed,” he wrote on August 1 on Facebook.

"Therefore, we should not hesitate even for a minute with the formation of Ukraine's consolidated claim to Russia to compensate for the damage inflicted," he said.

Poroshenko said he asked his cabinet to take steps for the “speedy creation” of an interagency coordinating body based on the law of reintegration adopted by Kyiv in January.

That law, he wrote, "clearly confirms Ukraine's devotion to a peaceful settlement and reflects my ideology of peaceful reintegration of the occupied region."

Moscow's takeover of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and its military, political, and economic support for separatists in eastern Ukraine prompted the United States, the European Union, and others to impose sanctions on Russia.

More than 10,300 people have been killed since April 2014 in the conflict between Ukrainian forces and the Russia-backed separatists in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Although Moscow denies interfering in Ukraine's domestic affairs, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in November 2016 determined the conflict to be "an international armed conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation."

At a summit earlier this month, Ukraine and the European Union, while agreeing on the need for reforms in Kyiv, also condemned Russia’s seizure of Crimea and its backing of the separatists.

On July 31, the EU expanded its sanctions against Moscow to include companies that helped build a bridge from Russia to Crimea.

"I am glad that my strategy was supported by the EU leaders during the Ukraine-EU summit, expressing their readiness to take the patronage of the restoration of the settlements of the Donbas," Poroshenko said in his statement.

It is not known how effective such a suit against Russia would be or whether Moscow would even acknowledge it.

Kyiv in the past has filed cases against Moscow with various international bodies with little success. In January 2017, Ukraine filed a case against Russia with the Court of Justice, the highest United Nations court.

Moscow in the past has rejected international rulings over its Ukraine-related actions, calling them "biased and politically motivated."

With reporting by Interfax and Unian</s>Russia scoffed at a US declaration that said Washington would not accept Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, suggesting the country’s Ukraine policy could change in the future.

“We know the worth of these ‘fateful declarations’,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a sarcastic comment on Facebook late Wednesday.

She suggested that Washington’s Crimea policy could still change – perhaps even under a new leader in the future.

In the declaration, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Russia to “end its occupation of Crimea,” and said Moscow had sought to “undermine a bedrock international principle” shared by democratic states, that no country can change the borders of another by force.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko hailed Washington’s “historic” statement, calling it a “worthy response” to the Kremlin’s provocations after Donald Trump’s hugely controversial summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week.

The US administration stepped up its damage control operation and on Wednesday also delayed a second summit with the Kremlin chief until next year.

There was no immediate Kremlin reaction to the postponement, which was announced just a day after the Kremlin said Putin and Trump had agreed in Helsinki to continue their “useful contacts”.

Zakharova derided what she called the inconsistency of Washington’s policies, citing as examples US reversals on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and the Paris agreement on slowing climate change.

These “were also official US policy not long ago” because Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama “personally decided so”, she said.

“And then Trump came and decided differently,” she said.

The US declaration came after the Russia’s ambassador to Washington said Putin had made concrete proposals on resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine to Trump at the Helsinki summit.

The ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, spoke after a media report said Putin had called for a referendum to be held with the help of the international community in Ukraine’s breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, which Russia-backed separatists control.

Speaking about a possible new summit between the Russian and US leaders, Putin’s top foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said earlier this week that the Kremlin received several days after the Helsinki meeting a US proposal to organise a new summit in Washington “at the end of the year”.

Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said the postponement of a new summit was “the right move”.

“Both sides need to focus on what deliverables can be,” he said on Twitter.

“Most important however is not to let US domestic politics overshadow international diplomacy. Learn from Helsinki!”

After a Western-backed popular uprising in Kiev in 2014 ousted a pro-Kremlin regime, Russia annexed Crimea and moved to support a separatist insurgency in Donetsk and Lugansk.

Moscow made Crimea part of Russia after a hastily conducted referendum whose results were rejected by the international community.

Putin has said the results of the vote would not be revisited.
The European Union imposes sanctions on six Russian companies involved in the construction of the bridge connecting mainland Russia to the annexed Crimea peninsula.