The President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, has ordered to permit visa-free travel from other countries in spite of the visa policies that they apply to citizens of Russia.
Such an order was made in order to facilitate tourism, business, and other types of travel to Russia, VisaGuide.World reports.
Apart from ordering to allow visa-free travel, Moscow Times explains that Putin has also ordered that the number of flights to and from the country gets increased. Moreover, Putin also ordered that tourist visas get extended and that the e-visa program for citizens of ‘friendly’ countries gets renewed.
According to the same source, such an order comes as Russia has been isolated over its invasion of Ukraine, which has been widely condemned.
The airspace bans imposed both by the European Union as well as Russia have had a significant impact on the travel and tourism sector of Russia as the number of arrivals in the country decreased.
While Russia has ordered to allow visa-free travellers regardless of other countries’ visa policies towards Russia, several European Union countries have already completely closed their borders for citizens of Russia and some others have introduced stricter rules.
The four EU countries that border Russia – Estonia Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland – were some of the first countries to decide to no longer permit entry for citizens of Russia.
The Baltic States and Poland decided on September 19 to ban Russians and also back then these countries said that they would no longer issue visas for them.
Commenting on the decision to introduce an entry ban and no longer issue visas for Russians, the foreign minister of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland said in a joint statement that such measures had been introduced on the common ground of protecting internal security as well as the overall safety of the Schengen Area.
Similar to the countries mentioned above, Finland and the Czech Republic have completely closed their border for nationals of Russia, meaning that an entry ban applies.
On the other hand, some other countries such as Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Slovakia have only suspended the issuance of tourist visas, which means that Russians who already hold a valid visa can enter these countries.
In order to have more uniform rules for arrivals from Russia, the Minister of Interior of Lithuania, Agnė Bilotaitė, called earlier in October for all EU Member States to follow the example of the Baltic States and Poland.
Minister Bilotaitė said that the other European countries should show ‘a strong backbone to this issue’, implying that they should also not allow entry to Russians, including those who hold a valid Schengen visa regardless of the issuing country.
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