From Reuters:
“Moscow decries U.S. move to
call Russians 'homeless' for visa purposes”
(US Embassy in Moscow)
Russia on Sunday condemned a
decision by the United States to add Russians seeking U.S. visas to a list of
"homeless nationals" who can apply for visas in third countries. The
move allowed Russians to apply for U.S. visas in Warsaw instead of their home
country after the American Embassy stopped processing most visa applications in
May due to Moscow's ban on employing embassy staff in Russia.
The U.S. State Department lists
as "homeless" applicants from countries in which the United States
has no consular representation, or where consular staff cannot issue visas due
to the political or security situation. Russia became the 10th nation on the
list, after Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela
and Yemen. "American diplomats have for many years been destroying the
system of consular services in Russia ..." foreign ministry spokeswoman
Maria Zakharova wrote on social media. "They have turned a technical
procedure, a routine one for the 21st century, into a real hell."
With ties already at post-Cold
War lows, Russia and the United States are in a dispute over the number of
diplomats they can post to each other's capitals, and failed to make progress
at talks this month. read more In addition, Russia has placed the United States
on a list of "unfriendly" countries who must seek approval to employ
Russian nationals - and has set the U.S. quota at zero. At the talks, Moscow
said it was willing to lift all the restrictions imposed in recent years, and
Washington said it wanted parity on diplomatic staff numbers and visa
reciprocity.
^ It makes sense for the US to do
this because Russians can not go to the American Embassy in Moscow or the
American Consulates in Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg due to Putin’s restrictions
on the American Embassy. The major downside (besides travel and cost outside of
Russia) is that Russians can’t go to other neighboring countries that easily.
Neighboring Norway, Finland,
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland are part of the Schengen Area so Russians
need a Schengen Visa to go to those countries before applying for an American
Visa at an American Embassy there.
Russians (and Belarussians) can’t
go to the US Embassy in Minsk, Belarus because of the restrictions placed on the
American Embassy there by Lukashenko.
Russian men 16-60 years old can’t enter
neighboring Ukraine and go to the American Embassy in Kyiv (because of Russia’s
occupation of Crimea and continued war in eastern Ukraine.)
Russian citizens can still go to neighboring: Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan without Local Visas and apply at American Embassies there as “homeless.”
They can also go to Moldova
(which doesn’t directly border Russia) without a Moldovan Visa and apply at the
US Embassy in Chisinau (again as “homeless.”)
^
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