Moldova’s National Commission for Emergency Situations has simplified the rules of entry into the country for Ukrainians, the Moldovan newspaper Newsmaker has reported.
It is said that the simplification will affect the entry procedure for the Ukrainians, who will now be able to enter Moldova through the Moldovan-Romanian border and Chisinau airport on the basis of ID-card, internal passport and other identity documents.
The decision of the National Commission comes in addition to the February 24 decision on the entry procedure for Ukrainian citizens, which allowed Ukrainians entering Moldova from Ukraine to enter the country under a simplified procedure.
It is specified that Ukrainians will also be able to leave Moldova for Ukraine based on the same documents.
The Italian government has opened entry for Ukrainians for all types of travel since July 31, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
“In accordance with the order of the Italian Ministry of Health dated July 29 on the updated norms for crossing the border with Italy, in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, Ukraine has been included in the list of countries of category D since July 31, which provides for the possibility of visiting the territory of the Italian Republic for any purpose, including tourism,” a message on the website of the interactive map of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine tripadvisor.mfa.gov.ua reads.
It is indicated that at the same time, those wishing to visit Italy should take into account the basic mandatory requirements.
In particular, the presence of a certificate of a negative result of molecular or antigenic testing for COVID-19 (the test was done at least 72 hours before arrival). The online Passenger Locator Form must also be completed, which is available at https://app.euplf.eu/.
Upon arrival in Italy, citizens must self-isolate for five days, after which they must retest for COVID-19, which must confirm a negative result.
“Self-isolation is not required if a citizen has a negative molecular or antigen test for COVID-19, and has provided the carrier or any other authorized person with the corresponding Green Pass European-standard certificate of completion of the full course of vaccination with one of the approved by the European Agency on medicinal products with the following vaccines Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, Moderna, AstraZeneca (a green passport is always provided with a negative test result),” the message explains.
In the absence of the above certificates, citizens can enter Italy, but they must self-isolate within five days, activating local health surveillance procedures, informing the local health authorities; pass the test after completing the established self-isolation.
Children under six are always exempt from the test requirement, but must still self-isolate if necessary.
The above provisions are valid until October 25, 2021.
In addition, the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine recalled that, in addition to the above rules, the rules for the need to confirm the purpose of the trip, the place of stay, the availability of the necessary funds, the date of departure from Italy, etc., remain in force, which can be verified by the officers of the border police of Italy when entering the country. The final decision on permission to enter/refusal of entry is always made by the Italian border police (Polizia di Frontiera), the Foreign Ministry stressed.
Ukraine has canceled special restrictions on entry into the country from India, introduced on May 2 this year due to the widespread of COVID-19 in this country. Resolution No. 611 dated June 16 was published in the Uryadovy Kurier newspaper on Thursday.
Since May 2, a complete ban was introduced on the crossing of the Ukrainian border by foreigners and stateless persons who arrived from India or stayed on its territory for at least seven days over the past 14 days.
An exception was made only for citizens of Ukraine and foreigners who permanently or temporarily reside in the territory of Ukraine, who are spouses or children of citizens of Ukraine, for whom the requirement of mandatory self-isolation was established, regardless of the presence and result of PCR testing. However, now this requirement has also been annulled.
The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine in 2020 did not allow more than 19,500 foreigners to enter Ukraine, head of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine Serhiy Deineko said.
“Since the beginning of the year, for various reasons, we have not allowed more than 19,500 foreigners into Ukraine. In most cases, these are those who could not confirm the purpose of their travel, had restrictions on entry or illegally visited the occupied territories, exceeded their stay or traveled with invalid documents. The majority of foreigners are citizens of Russia, Moldova and Turkey,” Deineko said in an exclusive interview with the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
According to him, more than 8,000 people were also identified, both Ukrainians and foreigners, who illegally visited the temporarily occupied Crimea.
“At the same time, it was the officers of the border department that issued more than 7,800 bans on entry to our country against foreigners for various violations. In addition, I will add that in 11 months we found more than 8,000 people – both Ukrainians and foreigners – who illegally visited temporarily occupied Crimea. We find up to 40 such people per day,” Deineko said.
The head of the State Border Guard Service explained that since the beginning of the illegal annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, the issue of illegal visits by Ukrainian and foreign citizens to the occupied territory has been raised. “At the same time, some of the foreigners then try to get to the territory of Ukraine under all sorts of pretexts, there are many clerisy people and actors among them,” he said.
“We have no alternative. Our position is principled: if a citizen of a foreign state visited the territory of the occupied Crimea, the occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, contrary to Ukrainian legislation, he receives three years of a ban on entry into Ukraine and will not be allowed into the territory of Ukraine,” Deineko said.
If a citizen of Ukraine visits the relevant territories in violation of the law, he will be brought to administrative responsibility, the head of the department added.
On Monday, the Civil Protection Headquarters of the Republic of Croatia decided to temporarily ban and restrict crossing the Croatian border from December 1 to December 15, 2020, the Ukrainian Embassy in Croatia said.
“The ban does not apply to citizens of Ukraine who have a valid residence permit in the EU countries and arrive in Croatia directly from the countries of the European Union that are on the green list of countries identified by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, have no signs of illness and have not been to close contact with a sick person,” the embassy said on the Facebook page on Monday. Citizens of Ukraine with a residence permit in the EU, who transited without delay through other EU countries to Croatian checkpoints, must prove at the border crossing that they were not detained in transit countries, and in this case, the ban from this decision does not apply on them.
“Other Ukrainian citizens who are sent from EU countries will be allowed to enter the Republic of Croatia upon presentation of a negative PCR test for SARS-CoV-2, taken no more than 48 hours before crossing the border (counting from the time of testing to arriving at the checkpoint), or with the mandatory passage of self-isolation before passing the appropriate PCR test in Croatia and receiving a negative result,” the embassy said.
Ukrainian citizens who permanently reside in Ukraine have the right to enter Croatia on exceptional grounds. In particular, these are medical workers, health researchers, care workers for the elderly; border guards; workers in the transport industry; diplomats, employees of international organizations, military personnel, police officers, humanitarian workers and civil protection persons in the performance of their duties; persons traveling in transit; persons traveling for study purposes; sailors; persons traveling for urgent personal or family reasons, business reasons or other economic interests.
The Ukrainian diplomatic institution said that such citizens of Ukraine as medical workers, researchers in the field of health, care workers for elderly people; sailors; persons traveling for urgent personal or family reasons, business reasons or have other economic interests will be allowed to enter Croatia if they have a negative PCR test result valid for 48 hours, or if they enter Croatia with mandatory self-isolation prior to passing the appropriate PCR test in Croatia and get negative.
“Persons traveling through Croatia must leave the country within 12 hours from the moment of entry. If there is a reason for entering Croatia, it is needed to register the intention on the website of the Croatian Ministry of Internal Affairs https://entercroatia.mup.hr/ and print the registration number of the application, so such confirmation will speed up the crossing of the border, but it is not an entry permit from the Croatian Ministry of Internal Affairs,” the embassy said.
The Ukrainian embassy said that when crossing the border and staying in Croatia, all persons are required to comply with epidemiological safety measures and general and special recommendations and instructions of the Croatian Institute of Public Health.
Ukraine International Airlines (UIA, Kyiv) canceled flights on eight destinations, reduced their frequency on seven more destinations.
According to the airline’s website, as a result of such measures, UIA is forced to revise the flight schedule and significantly reduce them. Starting from September 14, the following flights will be completely canceled: Kyiv-Zaporizhia, Kyiv-Madrid, Kyiv-Barcelona, Kyiv-Geneva, Kyiv-Delhi, Kyiv-Berlin, Kyiv-Chisinau, and also Kyiv-Athens (except for two flights). Flights on the route Kyiv-Kherson will be canceled from September 20.
In addition, the airline reduced the frequency of flights on the following routes: Kyiv-Odesa, Kyiv-Paris, Kyiv-Dusseldorf, Kyiv-Brussels, Kyiv-Dubai, Kyiv-Istanbul, and Kyiv-Tel Aviv.
“We now have to make a decision on the airline’s plans for the coming days, without having enough time or enough information. Of course, we will wait for the publication of the Cabinet of Ministers resolution and make a decision to cancel flights, based on the content of the document. We are considering several options, including radical,” CEO of the airline Yevhen Dykhne said.
According to the airline, in the total current UIA passenger traffic, the percentage of foreigners transported is about 60%.
