MOSCOW, April 18 ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine has for the first time ever made an official recognition of the restrictions it has introduced on trips to its territory by the citizens of Russia and the citizens of Ukraine living in Crimea.

The State Border Service of Ukraine has told Itar-Tass that restrictions have been introduced provisionally and cover the Russian citizens and Ukrainians living in Crimea in the age group of 16 to 60 years old.

Russian airlines have reported more than once on the case of mass denials of entry to Ukraine for their passengers arriving from Russia.

Russian newsmen, too, reported on the situations where the Ukrainians did not let them into the country. Social networks, too, have been flooded with reports on Russian men, who could be drafted to the Armed Forces owing to their age, are faced problems as they tried to cross the border.

However, Ukrainian border officials have not made any reports until April 17 on the restrictions to enter the country for any specific categories of people and did not provide explanations for the refusals to let people cross the border.

The Border Service said Thursday, on the day when the chief of foreign policy departments from the Russia, Ukraine, the U.S., said the special terms of control would embrace all the citizens of Russia aged sixteen to sixty years old and “interviews” would be held with them at border crossing stations.

They would be let into Ukraine on the basis of a confirmation of death or disease of a close relative and the availability of a document confirming invitations from legal entities or individuals, officials at the State Border Service told Itar-Tass.

The entry of Ukraine would also be restricted for male residents of the Crimea and the city of Sevastopol aged from sixteen to sixty years old. “In the first place, attention will be paid to physically fit men traveling to Ukraine alone or in small groups,” a notification published by the border service said.

It indicated however that the restrictions would not apply to the personnel of “foreign transport companies” servicing the transport routes with foreign destinations.

The Russian national flag carrying airline Aeroflot was the first one to report on the restrictions. It issued warnings to all the mail customers in the age group of sixteen to sixty years old.

Aeroflot also warned women in the age group of twenty to thirty five years old of a possibility of “specialized control measures” registered in Crimea and Sevastopol.

“They will be let into Ukrainian territory only upon passing the special filtration measures,” the airline said.

 

Apart from Aeroflot, the Ukrainians issued an official notification to a number of categories of customs of Transaero airline, the press service of the latter told Itar-Tass.

Another major Russian airline, S7, said it did not receive a notification but the departures of its flights from Odessa and Kiev were delayed because of much lengthier preflight check-in formalities.

In the meantime, the chief press officer of the Russian border service department for the Belgorod and Voronezh regions, Dmitry Zhukov said Ukrainian border officers did not into their country a total of 45 Russian citizens going to Ukraine to visit their relatives during the Easter holidays.

He said that the incident had occurred on the territory of Ukraine’s Kharkov region. “Five of the passengers who were denied entry are women with children,” he said, adding that the Ukrainian side specified the ‘Absence of purpose for sojourn in the country’ as the reason for denial.

“There has never been such an amassed return of our citizens from the territory of Ukraine in the past,” Zhukov said.