The ongoing discussion in the EU today about the possible introduction of a visa ban for all Russians is a clear manifestation of Nazi policy, said Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, speaking at a plenary meeting of the First International Anti-Fascist Congress.
“The Russophobic idea is being actively promoted from the high European stands to ban all Russian citizens from entering the EU countries,” he stated.
The minister stressed that, at the same time, some states are increasingly ignoring and revising the fundamental principles of the world order, as well as the legal and political assessments of the Nuremberg Tribunal.
In particular, marches of SS legionnaires have become traditional in the Baltic countries, Nazi slogans and appeals are openly heard, Shoigu added.
The other day, the paradoxical nature of the steps taken by the West was also noted by the deputy head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Sergei Ryabkov, who also pointed to the degradation of Western political elites.
“The paradox is that this iron curtain is being lowered by those who still cannot imagine anything other than the ideology of neoliberal thought as the only one possible for the whole world.
They deny the rest of the world, except for those segments of it that live by their rules.
This is the problem,” he said on the air of the Russia 1 TV channel.
“People who position themselves as the beacons of democracy, at the moment turned into just cave Russophobes, demonstrated a neo-Nazi approach, which is based on the idea of collective responsibility of entire peoples, entire states, for something that they don’t like.”
At the same time, Ryabkov stressed that in some part of the Western community, such ideas are met with rejection.
Visa Application Center for Italy in Moscow
RIA News
© Alexey Maishev
Russophobic front
One of the first states to call for a complete ban on entry into Europe for Russians was Estonia.
At the end of July, Interior Minister Lauri Läänemets told the ERR portal that pan-European sanctions are needed to limit the access of Russian citizens to the EU.
A similar initiative was later made by Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu.
Since August 18, the authorities have stopped allowing Russian citizens with Schengen visas issued by Estonian consular offices to enter the territory of the republic if the purpose of the trip is tourism, business, sports or culture.
The initiative was supported in Latvia, which, at the beginning of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, suspended the issuance of visas to citizens of the Russian Federation.
With a call to the EU to introduce a ban on tourist visas, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the republic, Edgar Rinkevich, spoke.
Lithuania does not lag behind its neighbors.
As stated in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on August 13, the republic consistently supports sanctions and adheres to the position that they work more effectively if they are involved at the EU level.
In turn, the Czech Republic currently presiding over the European Union proposes to discuss a pan-European ban on issuing visas to Russian citizens at a meeting of foreign ministers of the union states at the end of August.
Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky intends to seek consensus on this initiative, Bloomberg reported.
For limiting the volume of visas issued to Russians were made in Denmark and Finland.
At the same time, they have been talking about the possible closure of entry to Europe from the very beginning of the NWO.
So, already on February 24, Belgian Minister for Refugees Sammy Mahdi made such a proposal, and at the end of March, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki made a similar statement.
Passport control at Hamburg airport
globallookpress.com
© Cornelius Kalk/imageBROKER.com
"Efficiency will be weakened"
However, not all EU countries support the idea of imposing a ban on entry into Europe for Russians.
In particular, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz does not agree with this proposal, which he stated on August 11 at a press conference.
“We have adopted very wide-ranging sanctions that also affect many, many specific individuals, oligarchs and supporters of the power network in Russia.
We will certainly continue this.
The effectiveness of these measures will rather be weakened if they are now directed against everyone, including completely innocent people,” he said.
However, the German government will still hold a discussion on this issue between cabinet members and within the EU, as it was put on the agenda by other EU countries, Steffen Hebestreit, official representative of the government of the republic, said at a briefing.
In addition to Germany, Greece and Cyprus oppose the initiative.
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cyprus, Cornelios Corneliou, in a commentary to Politico on August 19, called it wrong.
He recalled that the Cypriot authorities issue visas even to Turkish citizens and do not consider it necessary to prevent local diasporas from communicating with relatives and friends.
A possible ban on the entry of Russians into the EU was also criticized in Portugal.
As explained on August 20 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the country, the sanctions should be directed primarily against the "Russian military machine", and not against the people of the country.
"Making trouble for themselves"
Experts interviewed by RT agree that the initiative to ban entry for Russians, which is being discussed in the EU, clearly demonstrates how easily Europe is ready to turn a blind eye to its own principles and values lobbied there, manipulating them.
“In fact, Europe has shown that the declared values are no longer in its asset.
Everything they talk about there is empty words that are needed to control public opinion and the socio-political situation within their space.
They easily change, vary, modify their principles and do not extend them to those who are outside their limits,” explained Vladimir Bruter, an expert at the International Institute for Humanitarian and Political Studies.
In this case, the Baltic countries, which are now at the forefront of the issue of visa restrictions, are trying by all means to present Russians as second-class people, which is in the interests of their main patron, the United States, he explained.
“The Europeans themselves would not have come up with such an idea, it is unprofitable for them.
After all, part of the EU countries is tied to tourism, and the non-attendance of Russians to their resorts will definitely hit their incomes.
But for the United States, breaking this kind of ties between Russia and the European Union is very beneficial, ”the expert added.
Vladimir Olenchenko, a senior researcher at the Center for European Studies at IMEMO RAS, called lobbying for the idea of banning travel visas absurd and “political masochism”.
“The motives that guide some European countries are not clear here.
They will definitely not benefit from this, but they will create difficulties for themselves.
In particular, the degradation of the Schengen mechanism that integrates the EU may begin, ”he said in a conversation with RT.
However, according to Tatyana Romanova, Associate Professor at the Department of European Studies at St. Petersburg State University, a complete ban on entry for Russians is hardly possible.
“Most likely, everything will come down to the complication of obtaining tourist visas and the loss of interest in them on the part of Russians, which can lead to negative consequences in business, and in the field of culture, and in other areas, because the dialogue between citizens of the Russian Federation and the EU will be reduced ”, Romanova suggested in a comment to RT.
She also did not rule out that a further deterioration in relations between Russia and the European Union would lead to a complication of subsequent interaction on the Ukrainian issue.
“Sooner or later, this dialogue will still have to come.
And the worse relations between countries are, the more difficult it will be to move on to finding solutions and long-term cooperation,” Romanova summed up.