The Cabinet of Ministers decided to remove part of the border with Belarus from the exclusion zone

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the draft decree of President Volodymyr Zelenskyi on the removal of part of the border area with Belarus from the exclusion zone. As reported The Ministry of Internal Affairs, this decision will allow the State Border Service of Ukraine to strengthen security and defense on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, as well as ensure compliance with the state border regime.

Currently, a 50-meter strip along the Ukrainian-Belarusian border is located within the exclusion zone and mandatory evacuation zone, which is owned by the Chernobyl Radiation and Ecological Biosphere Reserve. The removal of this area from the territory of the reserve will allow the State Border Guard Service to perform national security and defense tasks in this area.

The project of the act provides for the transfer of land plots for permanent use to the State Border Service for the construction and arrangement of engineering and technical facilities, which meets the requirements of the law “On the State Border of Ukraine”.

We will remind that in August representatives of the State Security Service reported on the concentration of Belarusian forces near the border with Ukraine, and earlier, in April, the Cabinet of Ministers terminated the agreement on cooperation of border regions with Belarus. In February 2023, the Verkhovna Rada decided to increase the border strip to 2 km along the borders with Russia and Belarus, with further mining of this territory.