Image by Julian Nitzsche
Ukraine has announced new border control measures which will make it harder for Russian citizens to cross the border into the war-torn country. It seems that the recent meeting between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and American President Donald Trump has emboldened the former Soviet republic to push harder against its Russian neighbor to the north.
Ukraine will soon require Russian nationals to be fingerprinted and provide additional data prior to crossing the border.
“First of all, it will be applicable to Russian citizens,” said Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Alexander Turchinov, reported Russian state news agency TASS. “It means that a Russian national planning to visit Ukraine will have to be preliminary registered and submit required data to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.”
Ukraine has also made a renewed push for NATO membership which seemed to be supported by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on a recent trip to Kyiv. This development has angered Moscow.
“We are carefully studying the Ukrainian authorities’ new measures and the degree of their compliance with the inter-governmental agreements existing between the two countries,” said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin.
“After that, we’ll see how we should react…We get the impression that these steps may lead in the wrong direction and harm the ‘human face’ of our relations,” Karasin said.
“This would be deplorable.”
