Dozens of Russians faced a ban on entering Georgia at the border. Yegor Kuroptev, director of the Free Russia Foundation in the South Caucasus (the organization helps activists, journalists and human rights activists from Russia with relocation) informed the Agency about this.
According to him, Georgia tightened control at the border a few weeks ago. Now, several dozen Russians are being turned away every day, regardless of profession, residence in Georgia, or the presence of a rental contract.
“If there is no residence document, residence permit, then no other documents are a guarantee of entry into Georgia for Russian citizens.”
Among those who have recently been denied entry are activists, journalists, and lawyers living in Georgia. There are also known cases when those traveling to Georgia from Russia were turned back at the border due to security threats.
In August, Russians were also denied entry to Georgia from Turkey. At the end of August, the Russian Consulate General in Trabzon reported that such cases began to be recorded almost daily. Residents of the North Caucasian Federal District and the Crimea faced refusals.
Earlier, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia agreed to significantly restrict the movement of Russian citizens with Schengen visas across their land borders. Countries have provided exceptions for humanitarian reasons, as well as for truck drivers and people entering for family or medical reasons, and diplomats.
Before that, the EU supported a complete halt to the visa facilitation agreement for Russians from 12 September. Russian citizens will face longer and more expensive visa procedures in the EU, and it will also become more difficult to obtain multiple entry visas. However, "students, journalists, dissidents and representatives of civil society" of Russia will be provided with more favorable conditions for issuing visas. At the same time, EU countries will be able to refuse visas to citizens of the Russian Federation who may "threaten the security of these countries and the EU."
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have joined the visa restrictions for citizens of the Russian Federation. Denmark and the Netherlands have stopped issuing short-stay visas. Finland announced that from September 1 it will reduce the issuance of tourist visas to Russians by ten times.