Russia plans to abolish border zones with occupied territories of Ukraine

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) is planning to abolish the border zones that operate on the boundaries between Russia's Rostov and Voronezh oblasts and the occupied territories of Ukraine and between annexed Crimea and the occupied part of Kherson Oblast.

Source: Russian news outlet Agentstvo, with reference to draft FSB orders

Details: The FSB has proposed invalidating its previous orders establishing border zones on the territory of Russia's Rostov and Voronezh oblasts and in occupied Crimea.

These orders effectively turned entry to and exit from the occupied territories of Ukraine into a procedure almost identical to crossing a state border.

In its drafts, the FSB explains the changes by the so-called "admission into the Russian Federation" of the occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson oblasts.

In occupied Crimea, a border zone will remain "within the boundaries of the Black Sea islands belonging to the Russian Federation". The FSB's regional directorate is to determine the locations and times for entry into the zone and to install warning signs.

Background:

• In March 2014, Vladimir Putin annexed Ukrainian Crimea, exploiting the change of power in Kyiv and using a sham referendum conducted on the peninsula in the presence of Russian military personnel as a cover.
• Immediately afterwards, Russia began staging provocations in Luhansk and Donetsk, fuelled the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine and supported it by all means for eight years before launching its open full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
• After 24 February 2022, Russian forces occupied further parts of eastern and southern Ukraine, while they were forced to withdraw from the north.
• On 30 September 2022, Putin signed "treaties on accession to Russia" of the seized Ukrainian territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts and declared that their residents were henceforth citizens of the Russian Federation.
• According to the "treaties" submitted to Russia's State Duma (lower house of the Russian parliament), the boundaries of the so-called "Donetsk People's Republic" and "Luhansk People's Republic" terror organisations, as well as Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts, which Russia purportedly "incorporated", were to be determined by the borders that existed "on the day of their formation and admission into Russia".

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