Ukraine - IOM and the European Union (EU) today presented EUR 2 million of equipment and vehicles to Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service in the northern city of Zhytomyr. The donation was part of an EU-funded IOM project SURCAP Phase 2, designed to strengthen the capacity of Ukraine and Belarus’ border agencies to protect their joint border.

Before Ukraine’s independence, the border with Belarus was an administrative boundary and thus lacks typical border infrastructure. Rivers and lakes constitute over one-fifth of the whole length of the frontier. Dense forests also make it difficult to manage the border.

“The modern equipment and vehicles purchased by this project will allow the North Regional Department of Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service to ensure deploy mobile units on the Ukraine–Belarus border,” said Lieutenant-General Vasyl Servatyuk, First Deputy Head of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine.

"We need to secure borders, so that we can efficiently detect and fight smuggling and other illegal border crossings.  At the same time we have to make sure that legal crossing for people and goods is as smooth as possible,” noted Ambassador Hugues Mingarelli, Head of the Delegation of the EU to Ukraine.

“The European Union has been a major partner of Ukraine in this endeavour, with contributions to integrated border management exceeding EUR 100 million. Today’s handover of equipment takes us one step further to our mutual goal of security, freedom and justice,” he added.

Manfred Profazi, IOM Ukraine’s Chief of Mission, said that over the 20 years of its work in Ukraine, IOM, together with the EU and other donors, has been providing assistance to the Ukrainian government in developing a comprehensive migration and border management system.

“IOM has been helping to enhance the legal and regulatory framework, institutional setting, human resources management and training structures of the Ukrainian authorities working in this field, in particular, the State Migration Service and the State Border Guard Service, and contributes to the improvement of their infrastructure and equipment,” he noted.

The second stage of the EU-funded regional project: Strengthening Surveillance and Bilateral Coordination Capacity along the Common Border between Belarus and Ukraine (SURCAP) started in April 2014. The total budget of the project is EUR 5.35 million divided equally between the two countries. The project is co-funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania, IOM and border agencies of Ukraine and Belarus.

Through the spring of 2017, the project will improve border management between Ukraine and Belarus through the purchase of equipment, joint study visits to the EU, seminars on various aspects of integrated border management, and the establishment of a pilot contact point "Pinsk-Zhytomyr".

For further information please contact Varvara Zhluktenko at IOM Ukraine. Tel. +38 044 568 50 15, 067 447 97 92 Email: vzhluktenko@iom.int