According to the list of orders to develop transport in Crimea signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, air travel to Crimea will not be subject to VAT from June 1, 2014. The government has been ordered to ensure the passing of relevant legal regulations on this issue by May 20, the list of orders posted on the Kremlin website said. Currently domestic air travel in Russia is subject to 18% VAT.
Putin has ordered state subsidies for airlines flying to Crimea and back, excluding Moscow and St. Petersburg. Subsidies will amount to a 50% travel fee, the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) has said. The list of routes subsidized includes 16 cities – Arkhangelsk, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Kazan, Kirov, Krasnoyarsk, Kemerovo, Irkutsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhnevartovsk, Novosibirsk, Samara, Surgut, Tomsk, Tyumen, and Ufa.
The Russian president has also ordered the Transport Ministry and Ministry of Economic Development to ensure a special Moscow-Simferopol tariff for Aeroflot Russian Airlines during the tourist season of 2014. The final cost of the named tariff should not exceed 7,500 rubles ($210) for a round trip taking into account all taxes and fees. The president has ordered the government to pass relevant legal acts on this regard by May 1.
Putin has ordered to draft and approve a plan to develop roads in Crimea in the long term. Firstly, it is necessary to implement a bypass of Simferopol and a transport junction at this bypass, the order said. It is also necessary to carry out a project to construct a crossing over the Kerch Strait and a highway from Kerch to Simferopol, the document said.
“To foresee financing sources and volumes and timelines of implementing the events stipulated by the named plan in the federal target program being drafted,” the presidential order said. The construction of the crossing via the Kerch Strait should be completed in 2018, the document said.
