Ukraine will open 66 checkpoints on the border with the EU and Moldova at midnight on May 29, said spokesperson of the State Border Service of Ukraine Andriy Demchenko.
“Today, the government’s decision has been published to amend Decree No. 288 of March 13, 2020, which regulated the temporary closure of checkpoints and their list. In fact, according to these changes, 66 checkpoints are opened and 56 are temporarily closed. Administration of the State Border Service worked through the relevant documents, sent them to the border divisions, and from this night, starting at 12 a.m., the work of all these checkpoints will resume from the Ukrainian side,” Demchenko told Interfax-Ukraine on May 28.
He added that the State Border Service had informed the neighboring EU countries and the Republic of Moldova that the checkpoints from the Ukrainian side are being opened, so that they take this information into account and could plan the opening of their entry-exit checkpoints, since the full functioning and crossing of the state border from Ukraine to these directions is possible only when checkpoints are opened both from the Ukrainian side and from the neighboring country.
“We carried out such information last week, after a government meeting, when such a decision was supported. Therefore, we hope that the neighboring countries have taken this information into account and will correct their steps. But we do not exclude that all of these 66 directions may not work simultaneously, however, we hope that they will gradually open as far as possible with the opening of checkpoints by neighboring countries,” Demchenko emphasized.
The spokesperson added that the State Border Service has an understanding of which countries will also be able to open their checkpoints in front of those Ukrainian checkpoints that will resume work on May 29.
“But it will be possible to finally talk about it exclusively as of tomorrow as soon as we see that those checkpoints start operating,” he said.
At the same time, Demchenko recalled that the decision to open does not concern checkpoints on the border of Ukraine with the Russian Federation and Belarus, as they, as before, will remain closed.
