Does anyone know the policy of postcrossing if two (or more) countries are at war with each other?
1 Like
I think that is a question that should be answered by @paulo or @meiadeleite, because it is not useful for us to make assumptions here.
2 Likes
It is a public secret that postcrossing is for connecting people in a peacefull way.
For us is a postal monitor implemented.
2 Likes
If we are aware (and can minimally confirm) that a pair countries donât have diplomatic relations and, most likely, also donât have a way to exchange mail normally, then we add them to the Postal Monitor so that those routes are excluded from the possible exchanges to minimize lost mail â or even trouble to the sender/receiver in some rare cases.
Note that these issues happen not just in case of actual military war â some countries simply donât recognize each other as sovereign states and refuse to send mail to each other. And, sometimes, this is one sided (eg: A sends to B, but B doesnât send to A because it doesnât recognize it as a state).
There are already a few of these in the Postal Monitor as we have been doing this for many years now (behind the scenes), even if the Postal Monitor as it is known today is a somewhat recent addition.
These mail issues are not very easy for us to know about (and we are probably still missing some), but over the years members of the community in those places have informed us about being unable to mail to some destination and if we able to confirm this somehow, we block that route. We usually only do this if the issue is long standing (years) and not a temporary one.
To end on a more positive note, even if sometimes countries donât officially recognize each other (or donât have official diplomatic relations), they sometimes are still able to mail each other through a third-party country by adding on the last line of the address âvia XYZâ where XYZ is an intermediate country that is known to re-route the mail to the destination. This is a bit of hack however, so for Postcrossingâs purposes, we donât rely on it to assume a route still âworksâ as it may not work sometimes (or not at all) and the receiverâs address may not include the detour country (or the sender may decide not to write it on the address).
22 Likes
Hello, Iâm still getting adresses for writing a card to Russia. I have sent an e-mail to Postcrossing about this, but this isnât changed so far.
1 Like
The postal monitor says that The Netherlands can still send mail to Russia, so if you pull an address to send a card, you may get a Russian address.
If you know that your postal service has stopped sending to Russia, there is a thread for you to add that information and the algorithm will be updated.
If your country **can ** send to Russia but you donât want to for some reason, then you will have to stop pulling addresses. You cannot pick and choose who you send to - the randomness is part of the point of Postcrossing.
5 Likes
Thank you for your reply.
Our postal service isnât sending to Russia. Thatâs what Postcrossing told me.
I donât know how to add this information.
There is a thread called âmail suspension updatesâ in the postcards and mail section.
If you post the suspension information there, especially with the source of the information e.g. from your postal service website, the postal monitor will be updated.
However, when i look at the NL post website it suggests to me that you can send to Russia
4 Likes
The Netherlands stopped sending to Ukraine and Russia for a short while, but we can send and receive to and from this countries again.
8 Likes
you can check the list here:( and subscribe;) )
https://www.postnl.nl/en/customer-service/delivery-status/international-service-alerts/
1 Like
Personally I think that itâs a shame that we can see that kind of activities in 21 century. 
4 Likes
I have send cards to Russia lately and they still arrive. So you can send mail from the Netherlands to Russia.
4 Likes