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The Russians can go to war with their neighbors or travel freely to the West – but they must not be allowed to do both. One cannot try to destroy the European rules-based system and at the same time benefit from its benefits.
Although direct air and rail links between Russia and the EU have been cut, Russian citizens with a valid Schengen visa can still enter by land via Finland, Estonia or Latvia. And in Finland, which saw nearly 176,000 border crossings from Russia in July alone, there was a huge traffic jam.
Finland is among the few EU countries that continue to issue tourist visas to Russians. Finland issued more than 10,000 new Schengen visas to Russians last month alone, unlike Poland and the Czech Republic, which stopped issuing visas for humanitarian reasons.
As the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas he said.The lack of a coordinated EU response means that Finland, Estonia and Latvia – the only land access points from Russia to the EU – bear most of the burden and risk of accepting Russian citizens into their territories.
Callas is right: visiting Europe is “a right, not a human right.” And so is visiting the United Kingdom and the United States – both of which have banned tourist visas for Russian citizens.
Certainly, there must be routes to political asylum for Russians fleeing President Vladimir Putin’s persecution. Encouraging the brain drain through work and immigrant visas is important to carefully vet highly skilled Russians.
At the same time, a concerted ban on short-stay visits would be unthinkable, given a reasonable humanitarian exception, just within the EU – and would include canceling existing visas in addition to suspending new visas.
The authorities should continue to reduce travel gaps to make the West more accessible to Russian visitors, including threatening a second round of sanctions against companies such as Hungary-based Wizz Air that are planning to open flights between Moscow and Abu Dhabi. A low-cost, albeit indirect, way for Russians to enter the EU.
The purpose of these measures is not merely symbolic. First of all, it is a matter of safety.
For example, two weeks ago Russian operatives targeted the Bulgarian warehouse of a Bulgarian arms dealer named Emilyan Gebrev. Large Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic states also represent a security threat, affecting the freedom of Russian citizens to travel, communicate and exacerbate instability.
In Budapest, the Russian-controlled International Investment Bank has diplomatic privileges and immunity comparable to other multilateral institutions in the West – the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development – and is widely seen as a vehicle for espionage and influence-peddling. .
A travel ban does not plug all available gaps. But the effectiveness of any sanctions regime will decline over time, as adjustments are made and solutions are found. For this reason alone, it is important that Western powers show that they are serious about severing economic and, yes, personal and cultural ties with Russia as long as it remains an aggressor in its war on Ukraine.
Talking about Russian “collective punishment” is beside the point. While the regime’s propaganda is effective, public support for Russian imperialism runs deep. “Ordinary” Russians bear some responsibility for the atrocities committed by their government and military in the war of conquest – as did “ordinary” Serbs and “ordinary” Germans in the 1990s and 1940s, respectively.
Certainly, the opposition deserves our help, but most Russians seem to view the “special military operation” with indifference. In other words, this is not the only thing Putin But Russian War
The reaction of ordinary Russians and Russian intellectuals to the strictures of travel bans is a matter of conjecture. However, the widely accepted notion that Russians are inherently willing to suffer for their motherland and expect Western sanctions is less speculative.
Above all, any concern about the country’s radicalization, cornered and isolated, flies in the face of the fact that 20 years of involvement, trade, and Russia’s integration into the Western fabric have made the regime imperialist, revisionist, and threatened. the world. In addition to economic sanctions, the travel ban is an opportunity to make Russians realize they can’t have their cake and eat it too.
Dalibor Rohak is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Twitter: @DaliborRohac
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