Police block roads and demand 5,000 euros to let drivers pass

Reports circulating online, spread by a pro-Russian channel, claim that police and SBU officers are blocking exits from Kyiv towards the western border and demanding 5,000 euros to let people through. In parallel, the tax administration of the Lublin voivodeship puts the wait at the Dorohusk crossing at 40 hours.

Two accounts are running in parallel about the same road. One speaks of kilometre-long queues and a winter without electricity that is pushing people out of Kyiv. The other, of improvised checkpoints where someone demands money so you don't end up mobilised.

## A checkpoint on Bratislavskaya Street

The information about the payments is being spread by a pro-Russian Telegram channel, which places an improvised checkpoint on Bratislavskaya Street, in both directions, with a van hidden among the vegetation. According to that version, plainclothes police and **SBU** officers demand **5,000 euros** from anyone they consider remotely liable for mobilisation and, if they don't pay, the recruitment centre appears.

It should be taken with a grain of salt: the source is a propaganda channel and offers no verifiable evidence. The message itself acknowledges that the information reached it as something "strange even for a Ukrainian madhouse" and that only afterwards did it decide to check it. There is no independent confirmation of the scheme.

## Forty-hour waits at Dorohusk

What does have official backing is the traffic jam. The tax administration of the **Lublin** voivodeship details the waits at the Polish crossings: **40 hours** at Dorohusk, more than a day at Grebennoye and **8 hours** at Zosin. Department representative **Michal Derus** explained that nine air-raid sirens sounded in a single night and several more in the morning, which temporarily suspended the processing of lorries and the movement of cars and buses.

Hence the queues of several kilometres that were recorded on that border stretch. The bottleneck is not only bureaucratic: frequent bombardments and the lack of electricity in winter have made heading west an option for many residents of the capital.

## What can and cannot be claimed

The collection of **5,000 euros** is, for now, an accusation without independent verification. The **40-hour** wait at Dorohusk, on the other hand, comes from a Polish public administration. Mixing the two without distinguishing the source is what turns a rumour into a headline.

If you plan to cross that border, check the waiting times with the voivodeship authorities before setting off and don't take at face value any payment demanded on the road without a receipt or identification.