You're reading: Foreign Ministry asks airlines to stop selling tickets to countries Ukrainians can’t enter

Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has asked airlines and travel agencies to stop selling tickets to countries that currently don’t allow Ukrainians to enter.

The ministry will hold talks with the State Aviation Service and the Infrastructure Ministry to discuss what appropriate actions should be taken to avoid Ukrainians getting trapped at the borders of foreign countries, the Foreign Ministry stated on July 7.

“Our goal is to create a plan in which it will be impossible to sell tickets to citizens of Ukraine to travel to countries which don’t allow Ukrainian tourists to enter and to Ukrainians who lack the supporting documents… such as residence permits, documents from educational institutions, or other documents which can confirm one’s entry,” the ministry stated.

The announcement comes after 17 Ukrainians who traveled to Greece on June 4 were denied entry into the country and detained in a police station on the territory of the Athens airport. One was soon allowed to travel onward to study in Paris, three were eventually allowed to enter Greece and 13 later returned home to Ukraine.

Along with other European Union members, Greece is not allowing Ukrainians in due to the epidemiological situation in Ukraine — Ukraine has more than 25 people per 100,000 contracting COVID-19 every day, the cut-off for EU entry.

That’s why Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba encouraged travelers to keep abreast of the epidemiological situation in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, there are 23 countries that currently accept Ukrainian tourists, including Turkey, Serbia, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Belarus, the United Kingdon, the U.S., Mexico, Egypt, and Tunisia. “These are the most popular areas,” Kuleba said in the same statement. 

“Other countries are no less beautiful,” he said, “but less attractive to Ukrainian travelers — Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Zambia, Tanzania, Burundi, Seychelles.”

As of July 1, the EU has not included Ukraine in its list of “green countries,” whose citizens can enter the EU due to its COVID-19 case numbers.

The EU reduced its green list from 54 countries (where Ukraine used to be) to just 15, according to Euronews. The green countries are Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, and Uruguay.

However, Ukrainian citizens who have spent at least two weeks in a green country are allowed entry into the EU for tourism purposes and do not need to provide any additional documents.

The green list will be reviewed every two weeks, meaning that, if the situation in Ukraine improves, its citizens will again be allowed into the EU.

However, despite the EU’s list not including Ukraine, Croatia will be allowing Ukrainians in, provided the travelers present the required documents that can be obtained via the Croatian interior ministry’s website.