2016-02-27 Sat

Sevastopol and Crimea, popularly known as Swallow’s Nest Castle was featured on the special commemorative 100 ruble banknote issued by The Central Bank of Russia.

The reverse design features the Sunken Ships Monument in Sevastopol Bay and a patch of Ivan Aivazovsky’s painting ‘The Russian Squadron on the Sebastopol Roads’. The banknote incorporates a QR code that leads to the Bank of Russia website. Twenty million banknotes were printed.

Western countries regard the Crimea secession as Russian annexation. They also accuse Moscow of direct military involvement in the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, the US and the EU introduced political and economic sanctions against Russian state-owned banks, as well as defence and oil companies. The EU imposed restrictions on the supply of weapons and military equipment to Russia as well as military technology, dual-use technologies, hi-tech equipment and technology for oil production.

Russia has denied military involvement and responded by imposing an embargo on agricultural products, food and raw materials from countries that joined anti-Russian sanctions.