Gentlemen, could you please relax and put down your weapons. Personal attacks do not help anyone.

For all I care, joerg_rw's repost of whitequark's IRC post (#21) is almost a verbatim copy of shanttu's internet link (#28). It is hard to accept that as a coincidence, it is more likely that one quotes the other or both quote from the same source. Curiously, none of them contains a link to an official statement by Pony Express, DHL etc, but as far as I am concerned, it is irrelevant since I am not going to use any of the listed couriers. They may have an issue with Russia due to delays but my experience is that Royal Mail ships to Russia just fine, albeit slowly.

For an added piece of mind, I will go and have a chat at my local Post Office on Monday. I wanted to wait with my reply until after that chat to give you solid facts but the last two posts made me react immediately.