Kiev June 12 (IANS) Some 555 000 Ukrainians travelled without a visa to the European Union (EU) since the introduction of the visa-free mechanism on June 11 last year the State Border Guard Service (SBGS) of Ukraine said on Monday.
About 64 percent of Ukrainians used ground transport for their visa-free trips to the EU while the rest travelled by air the SBGS said in a statement.
According to the SBGS s spokesman Oleg Slobodyan over the past year Ukrainians visited the EU member states 20 million times up 13 percent from a year ago.
The visa-free mechanism allows Ukrainian biometric passport holders to stay in the EU for 90 days without a visa in any 180-day period Xinhua reported.
The mechanism applies to all EU countries except Ireland and the UK. Ukrainians can also enter the non-EU countries -- Iceland Liechtenstein Norway and Switzerland without a visa.

--IANS tsb