Russian authorities have imposed passport control for passengers of buses going to Belarus. It was reported by a Belarusian whose passport data was checked when purchasing the ticket at the bus station in Smolensk. The information about passport control was confirmed by the Russian bus lines company.
According to a Belarusian citizen, employees of Smolensk bus station checked the correspondence of photographs and passport holders, as well as tickets’ information, and checked carefully passport data of passengers of Caucasian appearance, European Radio for Belarus informs.
However, an employee of the Russian bus lines noted that passport control was organized not only for trips to Belarus, but also in other directions. Company’s representative explained that it was a requirement of Russian FSB and is connected with the recent terrorist attacks in Moscow.
At the same time, in Smolensk border department of Russian Federal Security Service stated that passport control in buses was not introduced as a measure to counter terrorism.
