Photo from UNIAN
Russian Deputy Minister of Transport Nikolay Asaul confirms that freight transportation traffic on the border of Russia and Ukraine is fully restored, according to Russian news agency TASS.
"Transit of Russian transport via Ukraine's territory has been restored fully, the border is open for the passage of Russian trucks from Europe to Ukraine and farther to Russia. Thus, we do not see any problems with the return of Russian vehicles from Europe and Ukraine," he said on Friday, TASS reported.
Asaul noted that the restrictions from both Russia and Ukraine will apply to the new transportation across the border. However, according to him, this restriction could be lifted on February 20.
As UNIAN reported earlier, on February 11, civil society activists began an indefinite campaign aimed at blocking Russian trucks in Ukraine.
The campaign started in Zakarpattia, then spread to Volyn, Lviv, Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr and Sumy regions.
The participants demanded recognition of Russia as an aggressor state with regard to all spheres of social and political life of Ukraine. In particular, they demanded a ban on operations of the Russian companies in the territory of Ukraine, termination of any trade relations with the aggressor state, as well as an introduction of a ban on entry into and transit of Russian trucks through Ukraine.
The Russian transport authorities announced that Russia had blocked the traffic of Ukrainian transit trucks in its territory in response to the situation with the blockage of the Russian trucks by activists across Ukraine.
Later, the Ukrainian Infrastructure Ministry announced Ukraine and Russia had agreed to unblock truck traffic from February 16 to February 25, 2016, for unhindered return of both countries' vehicles home.