The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry is working on a regulation under which Russian citizens could enter or exit Ukraine only via biometric passports, Foreign Ministry political department director Oleksiy Makeyev said.
“The work has begun, and the Foreign Ministry has engaged experts and civil society to discuss this not only on the state and government level. This is one of the options,” Makeyev said.
“No decision has yet been made on the matter, we have a lot of tools, and each of them has the right to exist. We’ll proceed from the real objectives set by the Foreign Ministry and by the special services and the country’s leadership,” Makeyev said at a press conference in Kyiv on Friday.
Restriction of entry to Ukraine for some categories of Russian citizens is among the possible options, and these categories would be determined through cooperation with special services, Makeyev said. Another option is the introduction of visa travel, he said.
Moreover, Ukraine might theoretically impose a complete ban on entering its territory from Russia, Makeyev said. “After all, an absolute ban may be imposed if there is such a necessity from the standpoint of national security,” he said.
Makeyev said later to Interfax-Ukraine that, in line with the law, the amendment of exit and entry regulations is within the government’s jurisdiction. “The procedure of people’s travel is regulated by an intergovernmental agreement, and therefore it is within the government’s jurisdiction to change the agreement existing today,” he said.
Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov and first deputy parliamentary speaker Iryna Gerashchenko had earlier supported the idea of introducing a regulation under which Russian citizens would be able to enter Ukraine only via biometric passports.
