War is a tragedy but can sometimes throw up unexpected postal history

If you tried to send a letter from the UK to Palestine at the present time you would find it rejected at the PO counter (I hope) or returned if you dropped it into a postbox as the service is currently suspended.  

Likewise mail to Israel experiences delays due to disrupted flights.  Mail to both Russia and Ukraine is still being despatched but is subject to delay, while there has been no service to Crimea or the Donbass regions since 2014.

On the other hand, the United States Postal Service suspended sendings to both Russia and Belarus in March 2022.  

SH has sent pictures of a cover shared with him by a Postcrosser.  The letter was addressed from the UK to Belarus but mis-sorted to the United States.  Normally such mis-sorts would simply be re-routed to the correct destination.  But in this case there is no US-Belarus service, so the item was returned to sender, suitably endorsed.  

A great item to add to a collection of postal history of the UK, US or Belarus, Russia or Ukraine!

UK - Belarus letter mid-2024 returned to sender after mis-sorting to the USA. Yellow USPS 'Unable to Forward' label.

USPS's fuller explanation of suspension and advice to claim refund of postage paid.

This is the first item I have seen of this sort.  I shall post it on a couple of stamp forums to find out if there are any others - there should be from the USA, but not so many from the UK!

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