Since 2017 flights between Russia and Belarus are no longer considered domestic ones, i.e. there is passport control.

As of 2019, does this apply to all Russian airports?

I am planning to fly from Kaliningrad to Minsk on Belavia in June and wanted to confirm whether I will go through immigration to get a Russian exit stamp when doing so.


We had some bad experience with that before. I called local Belavia representative, and he said, you will get all stamps if you show Belarus visa or transit ticket. It's required to board that plane.

Note that you can't use visa-free entry thing by taking a plane from Russia:

The given order of visa-free movement through the airport does not extend to persons coming to Belarus by plane from the Russian Federation, as well as to those who intend to fly to the airports of the Russian Federation (such flights are considered as internal ones and do not have border control). http://mfa.gov.by/en/visa/visafreetravel/e0ced19bb1f9bf2c.html#24

Check this post with more details on the issue. Along with a plan B for visiting Minsk from Kaliningrad without a visa: http://kaliningradguide.com/2019/05/16/kaliningrad-minsk-flight-visa/

  • 1
    This sounds great, thanks for the useful article. I will get my Belarusian visa and give this a go. – martin May 16 '19 at 12:56

Just a small reminder that this answer is time limited in relevance: for current travel it is only very limited in possible application - don't take this as advice that it is possible to do this all the time without visa, you'll get a lot of problems.

Even though there are negotiations about implementing mutual visa-recognition between the Union State members Russia and Belarus, at this time it is not something you can rely on.

For your plan in June, you can absolutely do this visa-free if you change the visa for a ticket to the European Games, as the organizing committee was able to confirm to me (I'm flying from Kaliningrad).

You just need to have the medical insurance you'd need anyway, possibly register the ticket for data sharing with Russia (it can't be wrong), and you can only use your ticket to travel to Belarus once, which must be before the end of the games. Afterwards you can still use it to transit to another location via Russia.

See my answer to your other question.

Your Answer

