Is it true that from September 19, residents of Crimea can leave the peninsula only with the permission of the military registration and enlistment office?

A photo of the order of the military commissariat of Crimea stating that from September 19, leaving Crimea is possible only with written permission from the military commissar was widely circulated in the media and social networks. We decided to check if this information is true.

Apparently, the first news and photo with the order that leaving Crimea from September 19 will be possible only with the permission of the military commissariat of the Republic of Crimea was published by portal Qirim News. Later, however, on the site there was posted information that the Crimean authorities have denied the introduction of restrictions. Nevertheless, the photo was distributed to other resources: “Focus», "Charter’97» (there, however, they emphasized that there was no confirmation of the authenticity of the photo), “Judicial and legal newspaper», "Facts», "Channel 24», "Censor.No», "Freedom Matrix», "Dialogue» and other predominantly Ukrainian media. Ukrainians also wrote about this Telegram channels, and users Twitter. On Twitter "Infovoiska of Ukraine» (162,000 readers), in addition to this photo, there are two more photographs of advertisements written in free form and placed, apparently, on the walls of entrances, with the same information. True, it states that travel will be limited from August 19.

Almost all reports of a travel ban are based on a photograph of an order allegedly sent from the military commissariat of Crimea to the transport company Transcargo. A. S. Grishin, whose signature is on the document, really serves at the military commissariat, the indicated position also coincides with the data on the official website. That is, theoretically, he could write such an order. However, in this case, the order itself would appear somewhere else: on the website of the military registration and enlistment office, in news agency reports, on the official portals of the republic. After all, in order to have written permission from the military registration and enlistment office with them, people must at least know that they need it. However, it was not possible to find it anywhere else: neither studying sites nor searching for quotations from the document helped.

"Transcargo» is a private freight forwarding company specializing in the transportation of goods. It is not obvious why the military registration and enlistment office could send such an order there. If such restrictions were actually introduced, they would be announced at the level of the entire region and they would be mandatory for everyone. Otherwise, the military registration and enlistment office would have to send hundreds of such letters to every company in Crimea that could theoretically transport anything across the Kerch Bridge. If this were so, then the Internet would probably end up, if not photographs of similar letters addressed to other companies, then at least testimonies of their employees.

In addition, full legal Name This company is Transcargo Company LLC. Most likely, this is exactly how the addressee would be indicated in an official letter. In the photo - simply “Transport company “Transcargo””. The text of the order in the photo contains typos that are not typical for official documents, and this also indirectly indicates that this is a fake. It was also not possible to find mass stories of people that someone was not released from the peninsula due to lack of permission from the military registration and enlistment office, and yet, judging by the document, the new rules were supposed to come into effect on September 19. In five days, many should have already encountered problems when leaving, if such an order really existed.

In some Ukrainian channels on Telegram wrotethat the order was published on the official resource, from where it was later deleted. Ukrainian journalist Andrey Tsaplienko in his Telegram channel published screenshot of the website of the permanent mission of the Republic of Crimea to the President of the Russian Federation. There, with reference to reports from some media (which in itself is strange, usually the media refer to official sources), readers are warned that those who “do not have time to leave the territory of Crimea before September 19, 2022, must apply to the military registration and enlistment office to obtain permission to leave.” It is further reported that “no one knows whether you will be given permission or sent to the zone of a special military operation.” Quite a strange choice of expressions for the press service of an official department, more like intimidation than a notification about the introduction of restrictions. There are punctuation errors in the text of the message, which is also atypical for press service employees. It is also worth noting that everyone else news on the site they are designed differently: the photo is placed in the upper left part of the message, next to it is the text. In the screenshot, first there is text, then a photo in the full width of the screen, then the continuation of the text. 

Advisor to the head of Crimea Oleg Kryuchkov denied this news in his Telegram channel. He wrote that “there are no restrictions on leaving or entering the peninsula.” On September 21, the website of the Crimean military registration and enlistment office appeared order "On the announcement of partial mobilization." However, there is not a word in it that leaving the peninsula is possible only with special permits.

Thus, it was not possible to find a single confirmation - official reports, news in the Russian federal or regional Crimean media, testimonies of people who encountered problems when leaving - that such an order really existed. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that this was a decision that was quickly canceled, so it did not have time to come into force or begin to act. However, a single photo of a document, distributed on not the most authoritative sites, can hardly be considered sufficiently convincing evidence. 

Cover photo: Qirim News

Most likely not true

What do our verdicts mean?

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