Govt bans Ukrainians from traveling to Belarus with domestic passports from Sept 1

A respective resolution was adopted at a government meeting on Wednesday, May 13, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

The government instructed the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry to inform the Belarusian government about the suspension of a respective clause of the agreement on visa-free travel for citizens from September 1.

According to the agreement of 2009, Ukrainians had the right to visit Belarus on domestic passports.

The entry to Belarus with a domestic passport will now be canceled from September 1, but it will be possible to enter Ukraine with a domestic passport.

According to the explanatory note to the resolution, due to the fact that a domestic passport of Ukraine (in the form of a booklet) has a low level of protection, the number of forgeries of the document has increased. In addition, the lack of information in the passport of Ukrainians in English makes it impossible to read data for verification on Interpol databases. At the same time, a foreign passport will speed up border crossing.

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