In a brief flick through the sent cards today, some have arrived in Russia today, both posted after the cyber attack.
GB-1615207 and GB-1620522 - 41 and 23 days travelling. Perhaps there is hope for my expired cards - though why did these ones arrive “so quickly”?
Just a quick message to let everyone know that this has been on our radar: something is definitely up with routes from the UK to Russia & Belarus.
Can’t confirm whether this matches the “cyberattack” at Royal Mail because the dates we see don’t exactly line up with the public information available (it seems to have started before) and my understanding is that the whole thing was a bit hushed so it’s unclear the exact date their IT systems had problems.
For now there’s not much we can do other than wait. Yes, it’s annoying, but delays & backlogs aren’t uncommon these days, specially coming out of a pandemic where everything was pretty messy in terms of travel times. We’ll keep monitoring it on a weekly basis for a while longer before considering any action.
If you are concerned with the possibly of being blocked by Postcrossing for postcards to Russia expiring: as long you have been sending all postcards to RU/BY throughout the last year and they have been arriving, then this recent issue shouldn’t affect you as we take into account a longer time window.
Thank you. This is really reassuring. I was convinced I would be blocked by the end of the week, with five due to expire this week alone.
Thanks for the rest of the explanation as well.
Happy Cakeday btw!
In reply to Paulo’s post, Royal Mail claim their international service has resumed in full. I suspect, however, that this applies to letter mail and not postcard mail, although of course I cannot confirm this. I have tried everything, extra postage, envelopes, plain stamps and beautiful stamps but there is no difference in the result.
I did look at the received cards of a couple of Postcrossers to whom I have sent cards. They are receiving cards from every other country. It simply seems that UK postcards are not arriving in Russia or Belarus.
I will have to continue sending postcards because I have a number of £1.85 stamps which must be used before April 3rd.
It would be an enormous relief if RU and BY addresses were not offered to UK Postcrossers until the situation improves.
Over to you Paulo!
Has anyone attempted to get in touch with Royal Mail?
The incident bulletin is updated daily, but this statement has been the case for nearly a year.
I personally think that parcels and expensive paid signed/tracked mail is being prioritised and standard/economy mail left to bundle up at the Airport Mail Centres.
It wouldn’t surprise me if RM are negotiating for cheaper to rates with their partners (airlines and freight couriers) to transport their mail to Russia and Belarus.
I may drop RM an email, but don’t hope to get an instant reply.
And of course I just stumbled across the exception to the rule, a card from Cambridge to Russia mid Feb, that arrived in 23 days: GB-1620522
Good luck. Do let us know if you get anywhere. I have always found their customer service lacking, officious and defensive amongst other things.
As an aside this is yet another “benefit” of privatization. Prior to 2014 Royal Mail were subject to the Freedom of Information Act and I once used this - successfully - to find out some information Royal Mail Customer Services at first refused to give me.
I called them about another problem and asked at the end of the call if there were any problems with the service to Russia. They said it was the same as it has been since February 2022, with mostly surface mail into Russia with very limited air mail. The fact cards of mine have been travelling for 70+ days to Russia didn’t surprise them.
I had a Russian postcard from early January expire overnight… Drew a new address in the newly vacated slot and it’s to… Russia again 
Going to do a little experiment and send this in an envelope Tracked at £6.90. Will keep everyone posted (pun fully intended)…
Well! Here’s a turn up for the books! I put this in the post on 11th January. There’s now hope for all our seriously delayed postcards:
And she has received it. (Not registered by Postcrossing or anything.) She sent me a nice message for the “amazing postcard”.
I think Royal Mail must be starting to clear the backlog and a shipment has arrived in Russia because there are quite a few postcards, posted since (or just before) the cyber incident that have been registered today. None of these ones are mine.
And another:
One to Belarus: Postcard GB-1604971
This one posted in February:
One of my Postcards to Russia got registered today, 44 days of travelling, I printed the address and wrote part of it in Russian, got a lovely hurray message for it.
Also I was in the post office queue today to collect some Flying Scotsman stamps and eavesdropped on gentleman posting out international parcels talking to the post mistress about one of his parcels to Russia arriving in only Five Days!
Couldn’t hear to conversation, but sounded like he checked the tracking and it travelled by a combination of Air & Road to Russia.
I think it was via parcelforce
@Maddymail shame that such travel does not apply to our lowly non-premium cards 
However I logged on to report a card of mine has arrived after a respectable 29 days GB-1619906
Now I wonder if there is any hope for my big cluster heading for 50 days now…
Just had a card to Russia registered after 57 days of travel (sent 11th January) - so there does seem to be some action at last!
Hopefully it gets better! Last time I posted here I’d unchecked expired cards (because they made me sad) but this is how I’m looking currently 
Of my 22 currently travelling postcards sent since the start of February, 9 are to Postcrossers in Russia. The “oldest”, sent on 10 February, has been travelling for 29 days, just shy of my 30 day average travel duration for my postcards to Russia.
Can confirm that many postcards from UK were registered in Russia in the last couple of days, so things are improving. Still quite a bit to catch up, but things are heading in the right direction. We’ll continue to keep an eye.
Is it just me? Five more cards to Russia are about to expire and of the 16 addresses I drew today, another five are going to Russia.
However, in view of recent posts above, I will try to be optimistic!
I’m not optimistic in view of my travelling and expired list.
My heart leaps for joy when I get a German address rather than a Russian one at the moment just to keep something moving!
But @paulo has the overview so I hope that maybe the worst is over. Does anyone have any accurate information as to what circuitous route mail to Russia and Belarus is currently taking?
