Putin opponents criticise EU ban on multi-entry visas for Russians

Russian opposition figures have reacted with anger and dismay to a decision by the European Union to introduce a ban on multi-entry visas to the Schengen zone for Russian citizens, announced in recent days. “Starting a war and expecting to move freely in Europe is hard to justify,” said the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, when announcing the decision last Friday. She added that the tightened rules were a response to Russian drone incursions into European airspace and sabotage attacks linked to Russia. Many in the Russian opposition, however, said the move would be counterproductive. “You can’t blame a whole country for the actions of its government,” said Ilya Yashin, a Russian opposition politician who was jailed in late 2022 for opposing the war in Ukraine, in a telephone interview. Yashin was freed in a prisoner exchange last year and now lives in Germany. Yashin said the visa decision was part of a trend of targeting ordinary Russians in the west with restrictions, while members of Putin’s elite would “always find loopholes if they need to”. Schengen visas were already hard to obtain for Russians, and some EU countries such as Poland and Finland have banned entry to all Russian nationals who do not hold residence permits. Additionally, many Russian exiles have found their European bank accounts closed or frozen in recent months. “There are many anti-war Russians and people who want to see changes in Russia. It would be more sensible to be allies with these people and combine forces with them to make a joint front against Putin,” said Yashin. The exiled Russian journalist Sergey Parkhomenko agreed, describing the visa decision as “extraordinary in its idiocy, ineffectiveness and demonstrative helplessness”, and saying it was a sign of a European elite who wanted to show they were doing something, but did not know what to do. The rules are already in force, and while individual countries in the Schengen free movement zone have leeway to interpret the rules, a source in Moscow said even Hungary, the friendliest country towards Russia in the zone, had this week stopped issuing any multi-entry visas. A foreign ministry spokesperson in Italy, favoured holiday destination for wealthy Russians, said Rome would also abide by the EU policy. “Member states do retain the right to exceptionally issue multi-entry visas in justified cases, provided the applicants demonstrate particular integrity and reliability,” said the spokesperson. The EU has said there may be some limited exceptions to the rule for those with close relatives living in exile, human rights activists or independent journalists, but opposition figures have dismissed this as unhelpful, as it means Russian authorities would automatically know to class anyone with a multi-entry Schengen visa as an enemy of the Putin regime. Elena Kostyuchenko, an award-winning Russian journalist living in exile, said the new rule would make life significantly harder for opposition media outlets, who rely on colleagues working anonymously in Russia for first-hand reporting. “A multi-entry visa makes it possible to meet in person and coordinate with editorial teams in safe countries,” she wrote. Many Ukrainians and some European politicians say Russians must accept some degree of collective responsibility for the war in Ukraine, at a time when Russian hybrid activities in Europe are stepping up a gear. “Travelling to the EU is a privilege, not a given,” said Kallas. “For the safety of their own citizens, all democratic countries should adopt much stricter rules for admitting Russian citizens to their territory, and this should have been done much earlier,” said Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, welcoming the decision. Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia, said on X that Russians protesting against the decision appeared to be more angry about being denied visas than they were about war crimes committed in Ukraine, taking issue with their “revoltingly overweening sense of entitlement”. When it was pointed out to Ilves that there are Russians who have been given jail sentences of eight years of more for talking about the war in Ukraine honestly, he dismissed the claim. “I doubt anyone got 8 yrs for social media posts about Bucha. But we’re used to lies,” he wrote. Yashin, who was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in jail in 2022 for a set of social media posts detailing Russian war crimes in Bucha, said he “could not believe it” when he read Ilves’ post. He said people should understand that there are “no legal or illegal means” for Russian citizens to overthrow Putin, though conceded that it was valid for Ukrainians to criticise Russians for not doing enough to change the political situation in the country. “If someone is sitting in a trench and risking their life every day then I think they have the moral right to accuse someone else of cowardice, but if you are sitting in a warm office, in safety, do you have that moral right? I’m not sure,” said Yashin. Additional reporting by Angela Giuffrida in Rome