The validity of the expiring driver 's licenses and passports is extended for Russians

“To recognize valid on the territory of the Russian Federation a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation, an identity card of a citizen of the Russian Federation on the territory of the Russian Federation, and a Russian national driver’s license, which expired or expires from February 1 to July 15, 2020 inclusively,” mentioned in the presidential decree. It's also underlined that these measures have been taken to prevent the further spread of coronavirus.

Those Russians who are already 14 years old, but they have not yet managed to get passports from February 1 to July 15, will be able to use a birth certificate or a foreign passport as an identity card.

The Russian president also instructed the Ministry of Internal Affairs to determine the procedure and terms for the replacement and issuance of the above documents.

Recall that on April 8, Putin instructed the government to work out a mechanism for automatically renewing a driver’s license for a period of at least three months, because of the restrictions imposed, Russian drivers cannot replace a driver’s license that has expired for 10 years. They also talked about passports and other identification documents.

"Now people have no time for bureaucratic formalities and walks of authority. Therefore, I ask the government to also work out a mechanism for automatically renewing passports, driver’s licenses, and other identification documents for at least three months," said Vladimir Putin.

Meanwhile, all this time, until the signing of the decree, the president’s order was not properly executed. Many Russians with passports and driver licenses expired in the days of self-isolation complained about the actions of police officers, as well as banks that did not want to recognize documents as valid.

The author of the Novye Izvestia material described a situation in which a traffic police officer stopped his car on April 15, the day before the expiration of his driver’s license, and politely warned: “You can drive a car with expired driver’s licenses only if the driver has registered his a statement about the future replacement of the document on the website of the State Service and can prove the traffic police the fact of registration (for example, on a mobile phone). "

When our correspondent decided to register his application for an exchange of a driver’s license on the website of the State Service, filling out the appropriate form, he was faced with insurmountable problems. It turned out that the Gosuslug website does not allow sending a questionnaire without filling in the column on the number of the medical certificate that was assigned to each driver when issuing or replacing rights. But during the period of the restrictive regime, all clinics in Moscow and the region that issue medical certificates for drivers are closed for receiving visitors.

Owners of expired passports also faced similar problems, who began to complain that banks had stopped accepting old passports for transactions. Passports in Russia must be changed at the age of 20 and at the age of 45, however, because of the measures introduced, this was also impossible to do.

Viktor Dostov, the chairman of the board of the Electronic Money and Money Transfer Association, told three days earlier in an interview for Radio Sputnik, that banks, in turn, could not afford to carry out operations with expired passports without the direct instructions of the Central Bank.