Dotted line

The State Border Service of Ukraine closed 23 checkpoints on the border with Russia, according to the website of the department. One of them is one international, four interstate and 18 local.

The points are closed in accordance with the order of the Government, adopted on February 18 in order to "optimize the network of checkpoints and the need to concentrate forces and funds in the most important sections of the border with the Russian Federation," noted the State Border Service.

Earlier, six checkpoints in Donetsk and eight were closed in the Lugansk regions. They were located in the areas of the border not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities.

"Thus, today 39 checkpoints (control points) are functioning on the border with Russia, three of which in the Chernihiv region, 14 - in Sumy, in Kharkov, six in Lugansk and one in Kyiv," the State Border Service noted.

In Moscow, the decision to close the checkpoint is perplexed, said Viktor Sorokin, director of the Second Department of the CIS countries of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "The Russian side will be ready to provide the possibility of crossing the Russian -Ukrainian border across the checkpoints" closed "by the Ukrainian side for citizens of Ukraine who will want to visit their relatives and bow to the graves in connection with the approaching Easter holidays and the celebration of Victory Day," Sorokin said.

Since March 1, Russian citizens to visit Ukraine will need to use a foreign passport . In accordance with the decree of the Ukrainian government, the opportunity to enter and move around Ukraine through internal Russian passports is canceled.