Ukraine bans Russian men

The Ukrainian State Border Guard Service has prohibited Russian men, aged 16-60, from entering the country.

"Control measures at checkpoints have been enhanced," head of the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service Pyotr Tsigikal said. "As of today, foreigners, primarily Russians, have been restricted entry," TASS cited him as saying. 

"Russian men, aged 16-60, have been prohibited from entering," Tsigikal added.

The chief of Ukraine's State Border Guard Service added that entry is only possible should the situation a "humanitarian nature" emerge, like funerals, for example.

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko said that the measures are taken “in order to prevent the Russian Federation from forming private armies” on Ukrainian soil.

The deputy dean of the Faculty of Global Economics and International Affairs of the Higher School of Economics of the National Research University, Andrei Suzdaltsev, speaking with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that this ban breaks human ties between residents of Russia and Ukraine and separates families. "The ban will hit, first of all, on ordinary people. Russians mostly go to Ukraine to visit their relatives. Now they are deprived of this opportunity. But it will not have an impact on Russia in economic terms," he said.

"Naturally, there will be a proposal to respond in the same way, that is, to prohibit Ukrainian men of the same age to enter Russia. Such ideas have been heard for a long time. Considering the fact that yesterday Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin stressed the need to break diplomatic relations, then Kiev’s actions are in line with his statements. Here it’s necessary to understand that there are 3.5 million Ukrainian guest workers in Russia, and if we ban them all, it will be a terrible blow for Ukraine. But Russia will not do it, because it is not fighting against the Ukrainian people," Andrey Suzdaltsev stressed.

A professor of the Department of Russian Foreign Policy in the National Security Faculty at RANEPA, Alexander Mikhailenko, said that Ukraine is trying to bring the West's interest back through the aggravation of relations with Russia. "This conflict is being escalated in order to aggravate the situation and they stop to talk about Ukraine only in a negative way. Obviously, Kiev wants to draw the attention of the world community to an absolutely empty bubble. At the same time, if Russia takes tit-for-tat measures, it will benefit Kiev. It’s better for us to pay less attention to these provocations and emphasize that it is being done only to bring the Ukrainian issue back to the international agenda," the expert pointed out.