At a border crossing with Belarus today, the Polish government banned the entrance of personal vehicles with Russian license plates. This follows the September 8th decision by the European Union to ban Russian-licensed cars from entering the bloc. The block goes into effect on September 17th.

This week, all the Baltic States and Finland banned entrance of the Russian plates. However, Poland still allowed the entrance of those vehicles from Belarus. Today’s decision now effectively blocks all Russian over-land entrance into the EU, even through it’s satellite state, Belarus.

As this publication reported back in May the Polish government banned cross country freight and commercial truck traffic from the Russian Federation and Belarus. This ban now completes that effective sealing off of Russian vehicle traffic, except air.

Poland’s Interior Minister Mariusz Kami?ski said this at the Belarusian border: “This applies to all cars, both those used commercially and also private cars, regardless of whether the owner of the car is a citizen of Russia or a citizen of another country. The rule is this: a car registered in Russia has no right to enter Poland, he explained. This decisions follows the European Union decision to do the same on September 8th in a new round of sanctions against the Russian Federation for it’s invasion of Ukraine. This is another element of the sanctions imposed on Russia and its citizens in connection with the brutal war in Ukraine. Due to the fact that the Russian state today constitutes a threat to international security.”