Russia drops border controls with occupied Ukrainian territories
Photo: Russia's FSB abolishes border zones with occupied regions (Getty Images)
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has announced the abolition of the border zone between the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine and Russia's regions, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, Agentstvo reports.
What has changed
According to the outlet, the Russian security service has drafted orders to revoke its own regulations establishing border zones.
The changes apply to Russia's Rostov and Voronezh regions, as well as occupied Crimea.
Until now, travel from Russia to the temporarily occupied parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions differed from crossing an international border largely in name only.
Photo: Russia's FSB abolishes border zones with occupied regions (t.me/agentstvonews)
Photo: Russia's FSB abolishes border zones with occupied regions (t.me/agentstvonews)
Details of the decision
In the documents, Russian authorities justify the removal of the controls by citing the purported "accession" of Ukrainian regions to Russia. Russia now plans to establish a border zone directly along the external boundaries of the occupied territories.
At the same time, in Crimea, the occupation security service will retain a border regime "within the Black Sea islands belonging to the Russian Federation." The local FSB office will independently determine entry points and times and install warning signs.
Ukraine's position on Donbas
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stressed that Russia will not achieve victory in the war and will not be able to force Ukraine to abandon its territories.
According to Zelenskyy, Moscow is trying to portray the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as a political achievement, but Kyiv will not agree to concessions that threaten the security of the entire country.
This position is also supported by most Ukrainians. According to sociological surveys, fewer and fewer Ukrainians are willing to make territorial concessions in the east, even in exchange for international security guarantees.
For most of society, handing over Donbas to the aggressor's control remains an entirely unacceptable condition.
