The Association of European State Postal Operators PostEurop has suspended the membership rights of “Russian Post” and “Belposhta”. This is an unprecedented decision in the entire history of the organization, which is a regional union within the Universal Postal Union. The decision to temporarily suspend the membership of postal operators of aggressor countries entered into force on June 23, 2022.

In order to temporarily suspend the membership of Posts of Russia and Belarus, the Board of Directors of the Association specially made changes to its Charter.

“Since the beginning of the war, all Ukrainian companies representing our country on the international arena, each in their own direction, have been making efforts to limit the activities of Russia and Belarus, as countries that, due to their aggressive actions, cannot be members of any business communities or professional associations. Ukrposhta, together with Ukrainian diplomats, as well as our colleagues from the post offices of other countries, managed to exclude the postal operators of the aggressor countries from the Association, until they stop carrying out terrorist acts against the Ukrainian people, destroying our cities, including the postal infrastructure. This is a powerful “political” victory, and a strong signal to post offices around the world to reconsider cooperation with Russia and Belarus. For the time being, the mail of these countries will be removed from the professional community. Such an exclusion happened for the first time in the history of the Association, this is the highest support that the world can provide to Ukraine in the postal industry”, - commented Director General of Ukrposhta Ihor Smilianskyi.

The Board of Directors of PostEurop suspended the membership of the aggressor countries during aggressive actions against Ukraine. The next meeting of the General Assembly of PostEurop, at which the Association can review its decision regarding the post of the aggressor countries, will be held on October 5. The temporary suspension of membership in the Association, in addition to reputational losses, means that the Russian and Belarusian post offices lose the opportunity to participate in the civilized development of the postal industry, in particular, in the discussion and creation of new customs systems, the introduction of new logistics technologies, the implementation of joint projects on accelerated delivery with post offices of other countries. In fact, these two countries are excluded from the world’s postal service. Each member country of the Universal Postal Union reserves the right to decide individually how to work with posts of Russia and Belarus. However, their exclusion from the professional community of postmen is an indicator for making a decision on the forms of cooperation with them.

We will remind that in April, to support Ukraine, Ukrainians and Ukrposhta, Post Offices of Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Australia submitted relevant documents to the Universal Postal Union to stop the delivery of shipments to and from Russia and Belarus. Latvian Post also joined the postal blockade of the aggressor countries, and stopped postal money transfers to and from Russia and Belarus in March.

PostEurop represents 55 postal operators from 53 countries and territories in Europe, which handle 60 billion items every year. The association is a regional union within the Universal Postal Union, which has consistently condemned Russia’s actions since the beginning of the war. Thus, at the beginning of May, the Universal Postal Union removed the aggressor country from the chairmanship of the “Customs” commission.