Control on the border with Belarus will be introduced for citizens of third countries

Russia introduces the regime of the border zone on the border with Belarus to control the movement of citizens of third countries. This was stated by the head of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Konstantin Kosachev, Interfax reports .

Kosachev assured that the agreement on the open border between the two countries would continue to operate. "We are talking about citizens of third countries. For example, neighboring Ukraine. A normal, standard process designed to eliminate gaps in the regime of the state border, I emphasize, in relations not with Belarus, but with other states," said the member of the SF.

"For citizens of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus, the following road, rail and air transport, nothing will change," said Grigory Rapot, State Secretary of the Union State.

The creation of the border zone is associated with the decision of Minsk to introduce a five -day visa -free regime for the European Union and the USA, a senior source in the presidential administration said . "Russia was supposed to do something in connection with the history of visas, so far they came up with this," he said. The source believes that this will not hurt the relations of Russia and Belarus.

Russia decided to establish the border zone without a preliminary notice of Belarus, the representative of the press service of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry, Maria Vanshina, emphasized . “Many have the impression that these actions lead to the restoration of full -fledged control on the Belarusian -Russian border, canceled more than twenty years ago. And this is contrary to a number of existing agreements that provide the basic principle of the openness of the borders between the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation,” she said.

The day before, orders of the FSB director Alexander Bortnikov were published on the creation of the border zone along the border with Belarus in the Pskov, Smolensk and Bryansk regions. Orders come into force on February 7th. The structures of the FSB border service are ordered to "set the places and time of entry (passage) of persons and vehicles into the border zone; organize the installation of warning signs at the entrances to the border zone."

As noted in the explanatory note to the project of one of the orders, the purpose of the measure taken is “Creation of the necessary conditions for the protection of the state border of the Russian Federation on the Russian -Belarusian site and conducting measures to prevent offenses, the fight against which is the competence of the border bodies.”

On February 9, a decree of the President of Belarus on the visa -free entry of citizens of 80 countries, including the EU and the USA, comes into force. The document applies to the country who arrives in the country for no more than five days, and only through the checkpoint of the National Airport of Minsk. "The established procedure for visa -free movement does not apply to persons arriving in Belarus with flights from Russia, as well as intending to take off to Russian airports," the document was emphasized.