It is possible customs, but for a long time – Newspaper Kommersant No. 63 (7508) dated 04/12/2023

A failure in the IT systems of the FCS, caused, according to the service, by a cyber attack, stopped customs clearance procedures in Russia for two days. Vehicles with cargo – regardless of the mode of transportation – did not enter or leave the country. Passenger transportation and empty transport were not affected by the problem. By Tuesday evening, the metered filing of declarations was resumed, but it is not yet clear how long the failure will last: market participants expect the system to be restored as early as Wednesday, but warn that even three days of collapse will cause a collapse in terminal parking lots, and market participants will incur additional costs to pay for the maintenance of goods in temporary storage warehouses and due to transport downtime.

For two days, customs operations in the Russian Federation were paralyzed due to a malfunction in the functioning of the unified information system of customs authorities (UAIS TO). The FCS explained that the cause of the failure was a cyber attack “on the IT resources of the FCS of Russia, which began on April 10.” The IT systems of the FCS stopped working early Monday morning, says Yulia Shlenskaya, president of customs and logistics broker KBT. “On Tuesday at 11 a.m., the FCS received information about a partial restoration of the system’s working capacity, and at 1 p.m. there was a publication on the FCS Telegram channel about the resumption of “dosed” registration of declarations for goods in electronic declaration centers (ECD), she says. we observed the suspension of the declaration. After all, there was no order to submit declarations for goods in paper form, and there was no electronic exchange.” At the same time, Alexei Chernyshev, commercial director of AKFA, speaks of earlier signs of a failure: “On the night of Friday to Saturday, a failure occurred in the GNIVC FCS system. We (as well as other participants in foreign economic activity) immediately fixed this in the form of a malfunction in the work of the personal account, the release of declarations, as well as the lack of data on released goods in temporary storage warehouses (TSW). “It is the last problem (lack of data on released goods at temporary storage warehouses) that we are now trying to solve manually: we provide shipping documents in paper form, a printout of the issued declaration and cover letters in order to pick up the goods from temporary storage warehouses,” he says.

According to the head of the Optimalog company Georgiy Vlastopulo, this is an absolutely out of the ordinary case: earlier failures were for a maximum of several hours.

Now transit is not processed, goods declarations are not accepted, the movement of cargo is suspended, says Vyacheslav Zalivashenko, head of the customs clearance department at Novelco. The founder of the JUST Group of Companies, Lyudmila Teselkina, says that it is impossible to clear goods under any of the customs procedures. “Vehicles with cargo do not enter or leave,” she explains. “Only passenger vehicles and empty cargo vehicles. Export declarations are issued only if auto-registration and auto-release is in progress. But it is still impossible to cross the border when leaving, since the border does not receive notifications about the release of exported goods and their passage through all customs formalities. Customs declarations for imported goods are not issued. On Tuesday, only confirmation of arrival at the actual control posts, registration of DO1 and DO2 (documents on placing goods for storage), as well as the passage of empty vehicles across the border are in working order.

The failure affected deliveries by all modes of transport, says Elena Paramonova, director of the customs clearance department of FM Logistic in Russia. “Yes, there are problems at all customs checkpoints where our vehicles are located,” says Anastasia Berintseva, head of the Delko international logistics group. “It is almost impossible to enter data on cargo and vehicles into the system.”

Because of this, the time for clearance at the border has increased, cars have stood up for customs clearance in Russia, she adds: transport companies incur additional losses.

In UMMC (manages Rosterminaluglem in Ust-Luga, Vostochny Port in Nakhodka), Kommersant confirmed the failure, but they said that everything at the terminals is in normal mode. So far, documents are drawn up not through an electronic system, but manually, they note there. In another port company, “Kommersant” was told that both the ports and the railway had stopped, everyone was “choking”. However, Russian Railways says that the passage of goods through railway border crossings does not stop.

“At the moment, the system has not been completely restored. Declarations for goods are dosed into the system,” says Elena Paramonova. “According to our information, it is now possible to carry out customs clearance under the EC (export.— “b”), as well as declarations for goods that undergo automatic registration and receive automatic release for domestic consumption.” At the borders, they have adjusted the old system and switched to paper media, cars are moving, says Igor Rebelsky, founder of VIG Trans. “But upon arrival at the customs warehouses, they cannot be issued,” he adds, specifying that the company was unable to submit a single declaration on Monday.

The return to paper media faced some difficulties, market participants say: terminals do not have paper for customs clearance.

For carriers and cargo owners, the suspension of declarations means unforeseen expenses, Yulia Shlenskaya says. “Among the first expenses is the temporary storage of those goods that should not have been on it, which are released immediately, without storage,” she says. “The costs incurred due to the downtime of transport will be billed by carriers to their customers. That is, in fact, cargo owners will receive additional bills from temporary storage warehouses and from carriers.” This whole situation entails the placement of goods that are not released in customs terms for temporary storage, Lyudmila Teselkina agrees, which, accordingly, leads to additional costs for foreign economic activity participants (not to mention unreasonable downtime of vehicles). A delay at any stage of the supply chain today has financial and reputational consequences, emphasizes Elena Paramonova.

There are no forecasts yet when the situation will be resolved, since the problem is serious and has affected all regions of the Russian Federation, Vyacheslav Zalivashenko notes. Mr. Chernyshev says that, according to his data, in recent hours the situation has partially begun to improve, at a number of temporary storage warehouses they are already seeing issues from the Far East CEDs. “According to my information, today in the second half of the day there were signs of establishing the process of processing declarations in the CEDs,” he notes.

Lyudmila Teselkina is confident that the FCS will resolve the situation in the next few hours: “We believe that it would not be superfluous for the FCS to develop an algorithm of actions in such situations, up to conducting appropriate trainings.” If during the day on April 12 the information exchange with the Federal Customs Service is restored in full (and it somehow begins to improve), then in general the additional costs of business will not be too significant, says Yulia Shlenskaya. “If everything drags on, then in three days the collapse will already begin, the parking lots of the terminals will be packed,” Igor Rebelsky believes.

Natalya Skorlygina