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Now Boarding: Chechen Air From Armenia To Crimea

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  • Now Boarding: Chechen Air From Armenia To Crimea

    NOW BOARDING: CHECHEN AIR FROM ARMENIA TO CRIMEA

    EurasiaNet.org
    Oct 3 2014

    October 3, 2014 - 9:42am, by Giorgi Lomsadze

    A brand new international travel option is underway for the
    Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula. An airline based in Russia's
    North-Caucasus republic of Chechnya plans to launch direct flights
    between the Armenian capital, Yerevan, and Crimea's main city of
    Simferopol, according to RIA-Novosti.

    Grozny Avia, named after Chechnya's capital, Grozny (Russian for
    fearsome), was ordered into being by the obstreperous province's
    warlord-turned-president, Ramzan Kadyrov. The air company now conducts
    domestic flights within the Russian Federation.

    Its twice-weekly Yerevan-Simferopol flights are tentatively expected
    to start on October 28, but may get pushed over into November, the
    carrier told the agency Crimea Media.

    Grozny Avia operated its first international flight out of Simferopol
    to Istanbul in July, when Crimea was already under Russian control.

    Regular flights were cancelled thereafter for "political reasons," the
    official story goes. Some news reports claimed that the cancellation
    was a result of Turkey siding with Ukraine and its Western partners
    in the dispute with Russia over Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

    Earlier this year, the International Civil Aviation Organization
    called on international carriers to avoid the Crimean airspace, which
    Russia hijacked from Ukraine, along with the land below it. Currently,
    all regular international flights to Crimea are mainly by Russia's
    Aeroflot.

    Armenia's reasons for wanting to help add Grozny Avia to the mix
    are clear. With thoughts of breakaway Karabakh dancing in its head,
    Yerevan recognized the Crimean referendum on joining Russia. (It's
    also had its own unsuccessful experience with trying to figure out
    an air-link to Karabakh.)

    But the main reason is the usual one -- Armenia remains Moscow's main
    foothold in the South Caucasus.

    Hints have started to circulate that, after repeated delays, Yerevan
    might even sign on for good to Moscow's Eurasian Union next Friday,
    October 10, in Minsk.

    Look for Grozny Avia to be happy about that.

    http://www.eurasianet.org/node/70286



    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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