The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine is ready to begin unilateral demarcation of the border with Russia if Ukraine's leaders give the green light.
“If a presidential decree is signed, everyone will have a clear task. Every ministry and agency has its own area of expertise. As for our service, according to the draft of the decree, we will be responsible for maintaining the state’s border during demarcation work, protecting members of delegations and working groups, as well as protecting installed border markers,” Head of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine Viktor Nazarenko said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
According to Nazarenko, it’s not a demarcation of the border, as demarcation involves both parties, it’s a unilateral marking of Ukrainian-Russian border by Ukraine.
He stated that the first and only maker on the Russian border had been mounted on the boundary between Ukraine, Russia and Belarus on November 7, 2012. “After that, Russia stopped installing border markers, and we continued marking the border. We have mounted 235 frontier markers since then,” he added.
As reported, the Ukrainian government approved a draft decree by President Petro Poroshenko on the unilateral demarcation of the border with Russia on November 19. In summer 2014, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine made a decision to task the government with unilateral demarcation of Ukrainian-Russian state border, due to current threats to national security.
The overall length of Ukrainian-Russian border is 2,295 km.
