Belarus–Russia border

The Russian-Belarusian border is the state border between Russia and Belarus. Prior to 1991, it was the border between the RSFSR and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. The border formally exists, but is not subject to customs checks or duty due to the Union State treaty and the Eurasian Union. The length of the border is 959 kilometres (596 miles).

History

The border between the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation was formally formed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 1991. In May 1995, Alexander Lukashenko and then-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin in the Smolensk region dug up a symbolic border post on the border between the two countries,^[1] although the border guard agencies remained stationed in Pskov and Smolensk, and in Brest there were commandant's offices that carried out operational cover of external borders.

On 1 April 2011 officially, customer control at the border was abolished. In accordance with the agreement, if the Belarusian transport authorities detect irregularities in the controlled parameters of a vehicle, the absence of necessary documents or irregularities in the documents, they issue a driver a notice of the deficiencies identified and advise him on the documents to be obtained before arriving in the territory of the other side. They also advise a carrier on the checkpoints on the other side, considering the route of a carrier, where a carrier must present proof that the discrepancies in controlled parameters of the vehicle have been addressed, and (or) the documents specified in the notice.^[2]

After receiving such a notice a carrier must obtain confirmation at the Russian checkpoint that the irregularities have been removed. The vehicle can leave the territory of the Union State only after the carrier presents the notice with the Russian conformation.

In April 2012 The Border Committee of Belarus and Russia held a meeting in Hrodna. At the meeting, Grigory Rapota, state secretary of the Belarusian-Russian Union State, said that 2,857 million Russian roubles had been provided for the project out of the Union State budget. The money was spent, among other things, on the purchase of two helicopters for Belarusian border control units and the further training of Belarusian border guards in Russia.^[3]

There is virtually no border control when travelling between Russia and Belarus, but since October 2016, document checks and prohibitions against third-country nationals have been instituted by Russia when travelling from Belarus to Russia by road, as it is prohibited by Russian law for third-country national to enter Russia outside border control, and there is no border controls on the open border.^[4][5][6][7] Visitors are advised by the Polish Embassy in Belarus^[8] to enter mainland Russia via Terehova–Burachki and Senkivka–Novye Yurkovichi.

Air travel between Belarus and Russia was treated as domestic and did not incur border controls before May 2017 (but there are identity checks as exist for normal domestic air travel in Russia and Belarus),^[9] since then, the flights have been treated as international by Russia and full border check is done on third-countries nationals by Russia, but no formal border check aside from a simple identity check is applied on Russian and Belorussian citizens.

References

External links

• Moscow erects border with Belarus, undermines its links with Ukraine and the Baltics Belarus Digest