Ukraine imposes new passport requirements for Russians

With Ukraine-Russia relations being tested by the ongoing conflict in Donbas, Kyiv has imposed new border-crossing regulations for Russian citizens.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said the new regulations “will significantly strengthen border controls and ensure the national security of Ukraine.”

“The Security Service of Ukraine will receive additional information on the number and names of Russian citizens who cross the border,” Yatsenyuk said at a meeting with the state services responsible for implementing the new regulations.

Ukrainians and Russians have scarcely noticed the existence of the border since the Soviet era.

“It was one country and one could easily buy a ticket and fly from Kyiv to Russia,” Mahud Matniazov, 48, of Zhytomyr told SETimes.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, citizens of both countries received new passports: internal/domestic and so-called foreign/international passports. But still, while the border existed on the map, citizens were able to cross it easily with internal passports.

The new rules mean the suspension of a 1997 agreement between Moscow and Kyiv that established visa-free travel for citizens of the two nations. The 1997 pact allowed citizens of the Russian Federation to enter and exit from Ukraine and stay in the country with an internal passport or, for children under 14, a birth certificate confirming their nationality.

“I think crossing the state border with a domestic passport is remembering the Soviet past, but Ukraine has been an independent country for many years and it is a good step for the government to have new regulations with Russia, especially at this time,” Matniazov said.

Experts said the old, simplified border-crossing regulations allowed Russian secret services to easily organise groups of saboteurs and provocateurs across Ukraine.

“It is obvious that the FSB [Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation] is organising provocations to destabilise the situation in Ukraine,” Oleksiy Haran, a political science professor at the University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, told SETimes. “The ongoing acts of sabotage happen on the territory of Ukraine, in Odesa, Kharkiv and other cities. The penetration of saboteurs into Ukraine occurs through various channels. It is obvious that some get through the border through the dividing line on the east where, until recently, there was no hard access mode. One from Russia could easily buy a ticket for the train and enter Ukraine.”

Since the beginning of the conflict in Donbas, security on the eastern border has become a national priority. Last year, the government initiated “the wall” project to increase security and define the eastern border. Western partners assist Ukraine in solving border issues, providing new patrol vehicles and other necessary equipment for border guards.

Haran said these measures, together with the new passport regulations, create a system of protection that ensures security on the border.

“There are a number of steps which will create a barrier against the infiltration of saboteurs from Russia,” Haran said. “There are many directions: adoption of permanent access control, crossing points, limited opportunities to move between the occupied territories and territories controlled by Ukrainian forces, refuse to make transactions on the occupied territories and so on. In fact, the introduction of entering Ukraine with foreign passports is a small part in a wide range of measures.”

Experts said such measures are important not only for national security but for obtaining a visa-free regime with the EU

“We cannot have essentially an open border in the east,” Igor Kogut, chairman of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, told SETimes. “We need to equip the new boundaries also with other CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] countries in order to have more possibilities for visa-free regimes or liberalisation of relations in this area with the EU.”

According to the new rules, Ukrainian border guards will place special notes in the international passports of Russian citizens. Ukraine’s State Border Service pledged it is ready to apply the new rules. The agency’s press office told SETimes that from the beginning of March “all information of Russian citizens crossing the Ukrainian border will be entered into a common database.”

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