The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have closed their borders to Russians due to the war in Ukraine
Warsaw, Poland – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania closed their borders to most Russian citizens on Monday in response to widespread domestic Russian support for the war in Ukraine.
Under the harmonized travel ban, Russians wishing to travel to the Baltic states for tourism or business, sports or cultural purposes will not be admitted, even if they hold valid EU Schengen visas.
The prime ministers of the three Baltic states and Poland rejected an agreement earlier this month to no longer accept Russian citizens, saying the move would protect the security of the four EU member states.
Russia is an aggressive and unpredictable country. Three quarters of its citizens support the war. “It is unacceptable for supporters of the war to travel freely around the world to Lithuania and the European Union,” Lithuanian Interior Minister Agni Belotayt said on Monday.
She added: “Such support for hostilities could threaten the security of our country and the entire European Union.”
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The ban includes exceptions for humanitarian reasons, family members of EU citizens, Russian dissidents, working diplomats, transport workers and Russians holding residence permits or long-term national visas from the 26 Schengen countries.
On Monday, Polish Minister of the Interior Mariusz Kaminskis signed the provisions, which will come into effect on September 26 in the Central European country, which bans Russian travelers due to the war. Poland, which borders the Russian center of Kaliningrad, still has strict restrictions on foreigners left by the coronavirus. -19 pandemic.
In Bialystok, eastern Poland, a member of the Russian Cultural and Educational Association in Poland said the new ban would have had a greater impact if pandemic restrictions had not severely limited travel with Russia.
“After more than two years of restrictions, we don’t see any prospects for improvement, and that’s the worst part,” Andrzej Romanchuk, a native of Poland, told the Associated Press.
He said regions on both sides of Poland’s border with Kaliningrad would suffer economically as border traffic boosts domestic trade. Russians also shop in Polish cities such as Warsaw or Krakow.
More than 65,000 Russians arrived in Poland this year, similar to the same period last year, but 10 times less than before the pandemic.
The Lithuanian Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that 11 Russian citizens will not be allowed into the country from midnight. Most of them go overland from Kaliningrad or from Belarus. There were no reports of accidents.
Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Rainsalo told Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat that the Russian travel was a concern because “we know that Russian spies used fake IDs and carried out various activities in Europe on tourist visas.”
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1, has a population and has recorded three million border crossings by Russian citizens since the start of Russia’s war with Ukraine.
However, the Baltic countries cannot allow Russian citizens to enter through another Schengen country. They want all 27 EU member states to impose similar travel restrictions.
The European Union has already banned flights from Russia after it invaded Ukraine. But before the ban, Russians were still able to travel overland to Estonia and apparently then flew to other parts of Europe.
At an EU summit last month, the 27 bloc disagreed on a broad visa ban for Russian citizens, torn between a desire to increase pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin and concerns about punishing ordinary Russians who might not even support him in the country. .. War with Ukraine.
The European Union already tightened visa restrictions for Russian officials and businessmen in May, but Poland and the Baltic countries have called for broader bans on tourists. Germany and France are leading a campaign to tighten visa restrictions on Russians rather than a total ban.
The Czech Republic, which shares no border with Russia, was one of the first EU countries to stop extraditing Russian citizens, it confirmed today, following Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine.
The three Baltic states were once republics of the Soviet Union, while Poland and the Czech Republic, formerly part of Czechoslovakia, were satellites of Moscow. This and their past history make them particularly sensitive to Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine.