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Over 150 trucks owned by Ukrainian carriers held in Russia

Russia on February 14, 2016 suspended the traffic of all vehicles registered in Ukraine in retaliation to a campaign unleashed by Ukrainian nationalists

MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. A total of 152 trucks owned by Ukrainian transport companies were in detention in Russia as at 09:00 Moscow time, Russia's transport watchdog Rostransnadzor said in a news release.

"As at 09:00 of February 15 a total of 152 trucks owned by Ukrainian carriers were in detention in Russia. No cases of unlawful actions by the drivers of detained vehicles were registered," the news release runs.

Until further notice from the Russian Transport Ministry Rostransnadzor inspectors in the process of control of cargo vehicles, registered in Ukraine, fill in special detention protocols listing the accompanying documents and take the vehicles to special parking areas.

The watchdog says under the presidential decree of January 2016 this measure is not applicable to vehicles transiting Russia from Ukraine to Kazakhstan.

Russia on February 14, 2016 suspended the traffic of all vehicles registered in Ukraine in retaliation to a campaign unleashed by Ukrainian nationalists.

On February 12 radically-minded Ukrainian activists in the area of Mokrany-Domanovo blocked entry into Ukraine (from Belarus) to trucks with Russian license plates and the license plates of other countries carrying Russian goods. A day earlier, a group of activists, including former participants in the military crackdown in Donbass, launched a similar protest action to upset the transit of Russian heavy trucks. They set up two road blocks in the area of village Nizhniye Vorota.

More than 100 Russian trucks are blocked in various regions of Ukraine at the moment. They are banned practically from all roads in Western Ukraine. Taking part in the road blockade, according to the Ukrainian TV channel 112 are nine regions - Volyn, Rivne, Lviv, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Sumy and Chernivtsi. The protesters are pressing for an official ban on the movement of Russian trucks through Ukraine. They warn the campaign is open-ended. The local authorities say the protest actions are calm.