The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved the Strategy for the Development of Border Infrastructure until 2030 developed by the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development. This includes road and rail border crossings with EU member states and Moldova. The Government also approved an operational action plan to implement the Strategy.

“Today, the land border is one of the key elements of economic sustainability for Ukraine. Closed air traffic and the destruction of port infrastructure have put a significant strain on checkpoints that were not adapted to this. Therefore, to adapt the Ukrainian border to the needs of transport and passenger flows, we have developed a clear Strategy with a detailed operational plan for the development of border infrastructure.

In addition to increasing capacity and developing infrastructure, we are also focusing on digitalising the border crossing process, introducing joint control with neighbouring countries, and building a network of service zones. These are the main tasks of the approved document, which we are already working on and will continue to work on. It is important that the approval of the Strategy is one of the indicators of the Ukraine Facility Plan, which we have successfully completed on time,” said Oleksii Kuleba, Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration of Ukraine and Minister for Communities and Territories Development.

The main objectives of the Strategy are:

• increasing the capacity of the border infrastructure;
• launching joint customs and border control with neighbouring countries;
• digitalising border crossing to reduce queuing time;
• creating a network of waiting areas.

To achieve these goals, the Strategy includes specific tasks and results to be achieved.

In particular, it includes the reconstruction of 29 checkpoints and the construction of 17 new ones. In addition, the Strategy envisages the reconstruction of railway tracks, multimodal terminals, and electrification of tracks.

The Strategy also focuses on signing joint control agreements with neighbouring countries, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, and introducing the appropriate type of control at checkpoints.

The approved document, in particular, provides for the introduction of mechanisms for forecasting peaks in goods and passenger flows for prompt response and redirection of vehicles to less busy checkpoints.

The indicators for monitoring the achievement of the Strategy’s goals include:

• the duration of each procedure and the total duration of all procedures;
• waiting time in the queue;
• number of checkpoints and their design and physical capacities;
• increase in throughput capacity;
• availability of a service area and its capacity;
• number of checkpoints with joint or coordinated control.

The Operational Plan to the Strategy includes detailed measures for the development of checkpoints and access roads, with deadlines for completing tasks and the amount and sources of necessary funding.