If a traffic police officer checks the car in the database, he will immediately find that the vehicle should have Ukrainian plates, and accordingly, for him, it is moving with fake plates.
A clear example was given by the journalists of "First Gear". A resident of Crimea, Sergei Bobnov from Feodosia, changed his license plates to Russian ones and got a bunch of problems. He says: "When I heard that the exchange of Ukrainian plates for Russian ones had begun, I decided not to put it off. At the traffic police department, they explained to me that this action is really necessary. Now you live in Russia, so you'll have to exchange the plates anyway. They asked me to fill out several forms. The next day they issued a license plate with index 777".
But as it turned out, it was too early to rejoice, because the plates are temporary, and when numbers with Crimean indices arrive, they will have to be changed again.
"Even then I realized that I had rushed, but troubles awaited me ahead," Sergei continues. "A week later I urgently needed to go to Nikolaev to see my sister. With new plates, I could enter Ukraine only through Kerch. That's where the official checkpoint is located. I stood at the border for three hours, but the most serious thing happened in Nikolaev. The car was stopped by Ukrainian traffic police and taken to the impound lot."
How else should an inspector act if, according to our laws, the car is either stolen or it's fraud. According to the database, he sees a Ukrainian number, but in fact a Russian one.
Of course, Sergei resolved the situation, but only after a couple of weeks. The "new Russian" had to go to Nikolaev again and provide traffic police officers with documents confirming the change of vehicle registration.
But nevertheless, the inspector told him that formally he should not return the car, moreover, he is obliged to confiscate it. But, based on humanity, he will meet the poor Russian halfway.
This situation can happen to any Crimean who has received Russian license plates.
What needs to be done to avoid such a problem? First of all, you need to deregister the car in Ukraine. The second option is to write an application for the transfer of the vehicle under the jurisdiction of another state. In this case, the car will be removed from the Ukrainian database, and no traffic police officer will have any claims against you.
