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Ukraine reports detention of 43 trucks on Russian-Belarusian border

Forty-three trucks and 22 freight carriages with Ukrainian goods have been detained on the Russian border, a report says

KIEV, July 5 /TASS/. Ukraine’s Ministry of Economic Development reports the detention of trucks and railway freight carriages with Ukrainian goods bound for Kazakhstan on the Russian-Belarusian border.

"Forty-three trucks and 22 freight carriages with Ukrainian goods have been detained on the Russian border," the Ukrainian ministry said in its report in Twitter.

Ukraine’s Trade Representative Natalya Mikolskaya said that Ukraine was studying an alternative route for Kazakhstan without crossing the territory of Russia. She said that otherwise all the goods would return to Ukraine.

A number of Russian media outlets have also reported that about 50 trucks have massed up at a border checkpoint in the Smolensk region on the Russian-Belarusian border. One of the Smolensk newspapers (the Smolenskaya Narodnaya Gazeta) wrote that the customs officers asked the truck drivers to show the accompanying transportation documents proving that the trucks had arrived at the Russian border before July 1 when the Russian president’s decree came into effect.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on measures to protect Russia’s economic security and national interests during the transportation of transit cargoes from Ukraine to Kazakhstan via the territory of Russia following the suspension of Russia’s free trade zone treaty with Ukraine on January 1, 2016.