Belarus Closes Borders With Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine And Latvia

“Due to the cur­rent epi­dem­ic sit­u­a­tion in neigh­bor­ing coun­tries, Belarus tem­porar­i­ly restricts entry into its ter­ri­to­ry through ground check­points for cer­tain cat­e­gories of indi­vid­u­als from Latvia, Lithua­nia, Poland and Ukraine,” the the State Bor­der Com­mit­tee said.

The restric­tions do not apply to:

• mem­bers of diplo­mat­ic mis­sions and con­sular posts with diplo­mat­ic and ser­vice pass­ports,

• inter­state long-haul dri­vers,

• mem­bers of train and loco­mo­tive crews of inter­na­tion­al rail­way com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

At the same time, the check­point at the Nation­al Air­port Min­sk oper­ates with­out restric­tions.

The current situation at the borders

Only trucks and diplo­mat­ic vehi­cles are now allowed into Belarus. Peo­ple are allowed to leave Belarus.

Inter­na­tion­al bus dri­vers and pas­sen­gers are warned that they will not be able to return if they now cross the bor­der on exit. The dri­vers refuse to go fur­ther, some pas­sen­gers are look­ing for an oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue the trip.

The ear­li­est reports about the pro­hi­bi­tion on entry emerged at about 3.30 pm. First, such reports came from Poland, then from Lithua­nia, Latvia and Ukraine. TUT.BY sources in Poland not­ed that the deci­sion to close the bor­der did not come from the Pol­ish side.

Lat­er, TUT.BY read­ers report­ed that bor­der guards allowed Belaru­sians com­ing from Ukraine to enter Belarus.

At the bor­der with Latvia, bor­der guards warn dri­vers of pas­sen­ger cars: “You can leave the coun­try, but you won’t be allowed back in.” Two check­points on the Belaru­sian-Lat­vian bor­der work only for depar­ture.

At the Kuznit­sa check­point, the Pol­ish side told Bel­sat that “the move­ment of bus­es and cars has been stopped, the trucks are allowed into the coun­try.”

At the Bobrovni­ki check­point, they advised “to appeal to the Belaru­sian side for clar­i­fi­ca­tions”.

A reg­u­lar bus from War­saw was allowed into the coun­try at the Bruz­gi check­point on the Belaru­sian-Pol­ish bor­der.

The infor­ma­tion ser­vice of Min­sk Nation­al Air­port report­ed that “the bor­der is open, planes arrive and depart.”

Sergei was com­ing home from Kyiv through the Novaya Guta check­point. The man spent sev­er­al hours at the Belarus-Ukraine bor­der until he was allowed into the coun­try. When he approached bor­der guards to clar­i­fy the sit­u­a­tion, he was told that “they will do some­thing with the Belaru­sians, but will not let for­eign­ers in”.