Two motor cars, Ford and Opel, were stopped by a joint duty of Horodnya mobile border post and SSU officers on Horodnya-Chernihiv highway, 12 km from the Ukrainian-Russian border. The law-enforcement officers had information on possible delivery of illegal migrants by those vehicles. In the cars driven by Kyiv residents, the officers really found seven nationals of Somalia and two Afghan citizens.

An attempt of smuggling into Ukraine of Japanese-made motor vehicles was prevented by border guards and customs officers in Lviv oblast. Two disassembled motorcycles and a scooter was hidden from control by a 45-years-old resident of Ivano-Frankivsk oblast who was coming back in his Mercedes minibus from Poland via Smilnytsya border checkpoint.

Preparations for muscle mass growth were found by border guards and customs officers in Odesa oblast when a Chisinau-Stary Oskol route bus was undergoing clearance procedures in Kuchurgan border checkpoint. The steroids - 5000 Oximetholone pills and 30 Sanozeline ampoules - were hidden under the Mercedes doors in a drinking water boiler.

Іn Volyn oblast, officers of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine had to quiet down a debauching smuggler. The 48-years-old Belarusian citizen was driving to Ukraine in an Audi-100 car through Domanove border checkpoint, but after having received a control accounting voucher for border and customs control he changed his mind.

A Turkish fishing schooner has been apprehended by Ukrainian border guards. Podillya, the Sea Guard ship, found Ozgur fishing vessel (under Turkey's flag) 50 miles to southeast from Zmiyiny Island in the Ukrainian economic zone. After appropriate stop signals were sent the schooner stopped, and an inspection group boarded it.

A 25-year-old resident of Lviv oblast tried to deliver almost 840 kilos of meat products from Poland secretly. He was coming back home in his Renault Traffic minibus through Rava Ruska border checkpoint.

About 4 p.m. 4 April, an Opel car entered Ukraine via Velykoploske border checkpoint on the border with the Republic of Moldova. During a routine clearance procedure, the border guards paid attention to the driver behaving nervously. He asked for clearing his car as soon as possible.

A Russian man lost a large sum of money because he did not declare it when crossing the Ukrainian-Russian border. Border guards and customs officials in Novoazovsk border checkpoint found the money in one of the bags in the luggage compartment of Rostov-Yalta route bus.

Active import of smuggled meat products into Ukraine has been seen recently, and such a situation is typical for various border segments - Russian, Moldovan, and Polish. During one day alone, from 29 February to 1 March, officials of the State Border Guard Service withdrew about 12 tons of foreign-made meat and byproducts.

A man who kept drugs - almost 50 kilograms - in his premises was found in Kherson oblast. Border guards of Bilhorod-Dnistrovsky detachment received information that a 20-years-old resident of Novooleksiyivka village, border Genichesk district, was looking for channels to sell narcotic substances.

A Russian man lost a large sum of money because he did not declare it when crossing the Ukrainian-Russian border. Border guards and customs officials in Novoazovsk border checkpoint found the money in one of the bags in the luggage compartment of Rostov-Yalta route bus.

In Volyn region, in the Friendship Park territory situated between Domanove border checkpoint of Ukraine) and Mokrany border checkpoint of Belarus, solemn passing on of the Friendship Relay Race baton running along the exterior borders of the Commonwealth took place.

A working meeting between Col. Yuriy Fedorov, head of the international cooperation department, the State Border Guard Committee of the Republic of Belarus, and Col. Ihor Harmashov, acting head of the section for international cooperation and European integration, the International Law Department of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, was held in the Administration of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine last week. The meeting also involved Lieut. Gen. Oleksandr Melnykov, Deputy Head of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, director of the International Law Department.

Trafficking in human beings is one of the most profitable ways to earn money for its organizers. Smuggling people abroad, they sometimes don't even think to what destiny they doom young girls and often teens and children.

An UAZ vehicle with no number plate was found near Mankove village, Luhansk oblast, by Milove post border guards and Security Service officers. The owner of the car left it 100 m from the Ukrainian-Russian border and most likely escaped to the adjoining territory. The vehicle was stuffed up to the top with tableware, household goods and bijouterie.

44 potential illegal migrants were sent back last weekend from Vystupovychi border checkpoint, Zhytomyr detachment. On 16 February, during passport control on a St. Petersburg-Chisinau train, a border guard duty had to put 24 passengers off - 8 nationals of Uzbekistant, 7 - Tajikistan, 4 - Armenia, 3 - Kyrgyzstan, and 2 - Azerbaijan.

Two nationals of the Republic of Belarus delivering drugs were detained in Pishcha checkpoint in Volyn oblast. A joint inspecting group of border guards, customs officers and militia workers decided to give a closer examination to the Audi car in which the two 23-year-old men - living in Brest and Brest oblast - were going home from Ukraine.

Officers of border and customs services apprehended a batch of smuggled currency, largest since the beginning of the current year, in Yahodyn checkpoint on the border with Poland on 5 February

Col. Gen. Mykola Lytvyn, Head of the Ukrainian border guard agency, paid a working visit to the Ukrainian-Polish border on 31 January and 1 February. The first item on the working agenda of the SBGSU chief consisted of an inter-agency meeting in Lviv that involved high-ranking officials of the oblast and city as well as heads of interacting law-enforcement bodies of Lviv oblast.

Nine persons of the Southeast Asia and Middle East origin and one African were apprehended by the State Border Guard Service officers within one weekend night in the Transcarpathian region.

Two German nationals were detained by officers of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine and customs on the Ukrainian-Polish border last Saturday. The enterprising Germans tried to take rather big batches of smuggled tobacco products out of Ukraine by using design features of their vehicles.

Two groups of state border trespassers were intercepted by workers of Salovka border post, Zakarpatya oblast, with a 90 minutes difference.

At 17.30 1 February, during passport control for Dnipropetrovsk-Domodedovo flight at Dnipropetrovsk airport, a border control inspector paid attention to a passenger's passport that had the photo re-sticked.

A group of Ukrainian citizens living in villages that border Romania used their motor cars to block the Porubne international road transport checkpoint situated in Chernivtsi oblast. The main reason behind such actions consisted of their discontent with the procedure of visa issuance by consular institutions of the Republic of Romania for Ukrainian nationals and with increase of visa pay since the beginning of the current year. The initiative group demands simplification of the execution procedure and issuance of free visas to Ukrainian nationals.

15 illegal migrants from Georgia and 5 from Pakistan were expelled from Ukraine by officers of the State Border Guard Service via Boryspil airport.

Having received information on probable transfer of a batch of smuggled items to Russia, border guards of Seredyna Buda frontier post, Sumy detachment, organized an ambush in the "risk segment" and stretched means of forced stoppage on the way of the probable trespassers.

16 illegal migrants were detained by workers of the State Border Guard Service by themselves and in cooperation with MIA workers last weekend.

The past weekend turned out to bring a "harvest" of smuggled cigarettes for Ukrainian border guards. Adherents of this, probably most widely used and one of the most profitable in Ukraine, sorts of illegal business surprised with their resourcefulness and scale.

Due to the measures taken by representatives of the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, the Polish Embassy in Ukraine, and the General Consulate of Ukraine in Poland, picketers were convinced to unblock the road near Krakiwets border checkpoints in Lviv oblast yesterday. The representatives of Ukrainian authorities and the two countries' embassies listened to the people's demands and explained the procedure of adopting the Agreement on Minor Border Traffic to them.

Mr. Ilkka Kanerva, Finnish Foreign Minister, OSCE Chairman-in-Office since 1 January, paid a visit to the EU Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM) in Odesa on 16 January 2008.
The event took place in the framework of the Minister's visit to Ukraine and Moldova (15-17 January). Mr. Ilkka Kanerva came to Odesa from Kyiv, and following the visit to the EU Mission left for Chisinau.

Seven Afghanis were detained by border guards at Chop railway station yesterday. Five men, a women and a child were going by Odesa-Uzhhorod train and, when border guards inspected the train, staying in a compartment's conductor of one of the cars.

A package with marijuana, about 267 grams in weight, was withdrawn from a Ukrainian female national 14 January by border guards and officials of Dnipropetrovsk customs point at Dnipropetrovsk airport.

Yesterday in Donetsk oblast, officials of border guard and customs services prevented an attempt of bringing a great quantity of foreign currencies illegally out of Ukraine. The money, almost 542 thousand hryvnias in hryvnia equivalent, was found during clearance procedure of Moscow-Kislovodsk train transiting via Ukraine, at Ilovaysk border crossing point.

In some recent time, queues can be seen in border crossing points on the Ukrainian-Polish state border, which emerge because of accumulation of vehicles in the adjacent territory near the crossing points, sometimes within settlements.
This results in people's discontent with long waiting for border control (sometimes up to 10 hours), complaints to the public authorities of Ukraine and the Republic of Poland, and in some cases blocking of approach driveways to the crossing points by some persons.

The Administration of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine hosted a round-table conference on the "Topical issues of training of experts in international legal work and journalism who plan to major in military and law-enforcement subjects in the future". The event involved Col. Gen. Mykola Lytvyn, Head of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, Col. Sergiy Astakhov, assistant to the Head of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, Prof. Vasyl Khasansky, director of the Institute of International Relations at the National Aviation University, and Prof. Hryhoriy Kryvoshiya, president of the Academy of Extreme Journalism.

An interesting method of smuggled tobacco transportation was presented by local inventors in the Transcarpathian border area. They decided to try the method of waterway cigarette rafting for reliability on Uzh river, bordering with Slovakia, in the border segment controlled by Pavlove frontier post, Chop detachment. The boxes with cigarettes were wrapped in polythene, put on foamed plastic, and the whole shaky structure was fixed with caprone rope. They got a sort of a mini-pontoon that they obviously planned to pull from one bank to another.

Two pneumatic 4.5 mm rifles HATSAN MOD.70, OPTIMA were revealed by officers of Rava Ruska border crossing point, Lviv oblast, yesterday. This small arsenal was found to belong to the Polish national driver of the MAH truck that was entering Ukraine from Poland.

Border guards detained an exclusive motor car with a falsified body number at Tysa border crossing point, Chop detachment. A Moldovan national was driving a Mercedes with a trailer across the Ukrainian-Hungarian border. In the trailer there was a unique Mercedes Benz made in 1957.

Thirteen illegal migrants from Pakistan were detained in two cases in the Transcarpathian area yesterday. One group - 6 aliens and 1 Ukrainian, probably, a guide - was apprehended at daybreak due to interaction between Ukrainian and Slovak border guards, and another one was intercepted by border guards together with MIA officers late at night.

6 December in the Administration of the State Border Guard Service, during the presentation of the SBGSU's development program "Security of European borders: Ukrainian dimension" all the guests were shown a new information project of the border agency - the Strategic Newsletter of Ukraine's Border Security (White Paper 2007 of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine).

Border guards and customs officers at Yagodyn border crossing point, on the border with Poland, prevented taking almost 13 kilograms of raw amber out of Ukraine.

On 4 December, Col. Gen. Mykola Lytvyn, Chairman, State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, and Maj. Gen. Igor Rachkovsky, Chairman, State Border Guard Committee of the Republic of Belarus, discussed situation and prospects for further development of cooperation at the common border.

Unusual smuggled items were apprehended yesterday by border guards and customs officers in the port of Yevpatoriya when inspecting Youssuf Zia Onish steamship (Turkish colors) that arrived from the Turkish port of Zanguldak.

Two smuggling attempts were hindered on the first winter day by border guards and customs officers in the sea port of Odesa. A service dog found 50 psychotropic pills and 5 morphine ampoules in a cabin of Royal Cooler steamship that arrived from Ecuador under St. Vincent colors. Along with the prohibited drugs, 150 grams of potassium permanganate were revealed, which is used as a precursor for drugs manufacturing.

One of the largest illegal migrant groups this year has been apprehended by officers of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine and the MIA 30 November in Sumy oblast. 32 nationals of Pakistan and one Hindu were intercepted 400 m from the Ukraine-Russia border in the vicinity of Studenok village, Glukhiv district.

Two large warehouses where smuggled goods were piled up have been revealed yesterday near the Ukrainian-Russia border in Sumy and Luhansk oblasts.

On 28 November 2007, the State Border Guard Service (SBGS) of Ukraine in partnership with the European Commission, the U.S. Department of State, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Mission in Ukraine will hold a conference to solicit the support of Government of Ukraine bodies and Parliament in the strengthening of Ukraine's border management legislation. The legislative reforms are an important step in the SBGS' effort to transform itself by 2015 into a modern EU Schengen-compliant law enforcement service, a standard that Ukraine must fulfill if it wishes to be EU compliant in this area.

Four Moldovan nationals suspect of an assault and robbery in the town of Ananyivo, Odesa oblast, were detained by border guards of Kotovsky detachment in Platonove border crossing post. The law-enforcement officers needed just a bit more than 1.5 hours for that.

A large batch of heroin was apprehended by officers of the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service in Illychivsk port. When examining an Iveco truck that had arrived from the Georgian port of Poti aboard Geroi Odesy steamship (Bulgarian colors), they found a hiding place with 105 kilos of that drug in it.

A channel for transfer of illegal migrants from Vietnam has been neutralized due to a joint operation skillfully conducted by Ukrainian and Polish border guards.

On 15 November in Kyiv, talks were held between the Chief Border Representatives of Ukraine and the Slovak Republic - Col. Gen. Mykola Lytvyn, Head of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, and Mihal Borgulja, Director of Border and Alien Police, Slovak MIA.

President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko paid a working trip to Odesa oblast. The main goal of the visit was to learn the situation in the near-Danube region. The state leader visited Bile village at Zmiyiny Island, and the Danube-Black Sea Ukrainian deep-water canal. By the end of the trip, the President held a meeting in Vylkove settlement on the development of the southern area of Odesa oblast.

Border guards, in cooperation with customs officers, found about 2.5 kg of a narcotic substance, allegedly marijuana, at Mohyliv Podilsky railway border crossing point situated at the border with the Republic of Moldova.

Some foreigners who had tried to organize a channel for illegal transfer of tobacco products from Ukraine to Hungary were apprehended yesterday by Chop detachment border guards in the Transcarpathian region.