The border committee of Belarus stated that it is ready to provide simplified passage for residents of Ukraine to Belarusian forests for picking mushrooms and berries. The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, in turn, stated that they have not yet received any notifications from Belarus regarding the passage of Ukrainians across the border, reports UNN.
Details
As stated by the border committee of Belarus, their border guards are allegedly ready to provide simplified passage for residents of Ukraine to Belarusian forests.
"Belarus, guided by the principles of friendship and good neighborliness and taking into account the needs of ordinary people, upon the instruction of the President of the Republic of Belarus, is working out mechanisms that will allow Ukrainian citizens, in accordance with a long-standing tradition, to visit border areas for picking mushrooms and berries in previously designated places. Belarusian border guards are fully ready to ensure seasonal simplified passage for residents of the Ukrainian border area to the territory of the republican landscape reserve 'Olmany Swamps' in the Stolin district of the Brest region," the statement reads.
The committee noted that this practice has been implemented for several years, taking into account the interest of residents of the border regions of the neighboring country.
"This category of Ukrainian citizens will be able to cross the border at three simplified crossing points: 'Mutvytsia', 'Khinichev', 'Selyshche' in the directions of the Ukrainian villages of Drozdyn, Berezove, and Poznan in the Rivne region, respectively," the committee added.
In turn, the spokesperson of the State Border Guard Service, Andriy Demchenko, in a comment to UNN said that currently the border guards have not received any notifications regarding this.
"I don't know if Ukraine received... The State Border Guard Service has not received anything like that. They stated that they sent it through diplomatic channels, but, in fact, nothing has come to the State Border Guard Service. If the Belarusians want to provide it, let them provide it. In general, such a practice, when local checkpoints were opened for collecting wild plants so that local residents could cross these places, was in effect until 2022, and now the cynicism of the Belarusian border guards is that they write 'guided by the principles of friendship and good neighborliness.' They are ready to provide something similar now. What kind of friendship or good neighborliness can be discussed when Belarus opens its border to a terrorist state and supports the actions of a terrorist state to kill Ukrainians," Demchenko said.
Reminder
On the border with Belarus, there is currently no recorded buildup of such a grouping that could actually carry out an invasion of the territory of Ukraine, however, according to intelligence, pressure from Russia on Belarus with a demand for Belarus to become more broadly involved in the war against Ukraine persists.