Russians barred from leaving the country after receiving military draft notices will not be able to exit through Belarus, the State Border Committee of Belarus told the news outlet Belsat.
“If the Russian Federation has not imposed a travel ban on him [the Russian citizen] and his documents are in order, he will be allowed through,” a committee official told a Belsat journalist who identified himself as a private individual.
Russia and Belarus share a common database of citizens prohibited from leaving the country, the committee confirmed.
“If the response is that travel is not restricted, then by all means, the person may leave from Belarusian territory. If travel is prohibited, all questions go to the Russian Federation. If the person is in the database, they will not be let through. If they are not in the database of those restricted from leaving, we will let them through,” the committee official added.
On April 27, the human rights organization Movement of Conscious Objectors reported that a Russian military draftee who had received a draft notice was denied permission to leave the country through Belarus — the first known case of its kind. The draftee, a St. Petersburg resident, had been ordered to appear for a medical examination on April 29. The notice arrived at the beginning of the month, at which point an automatic travel ban appeared in the electronic registry. Human rights activists suggested that Russia and Belarus had begun exchanging data from the electronic military registration registry and the draft notice registry.
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