Foreign Ministry urged not to rule out "seemingly improbable scenarios" with Schengen

The department does not exclude the possibility that the Russians will stop issuing Schengen visas.The ministry also noted the "degradation" of consular relations

The Russian Foreign Ministry is following the statements and actions of Europe regarding the issuance of Schengen visas to Russians and does not exclude the possibility of its termination, Ivan Volynkin, director of the consular department, said in an interview with TASS.

He pointed out that the ministry records "calls coming from Europe" that come from "odious politicians or public figures - Russophobes." But in addition to statements, there are also specific actions: for example, there was a "virtually complete suspension of visa processing for Russian citizens in the consular offices of Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic and Estonia located in Russia," the diplomat noted.

“In the event of a radical degradation of consular ties with the rest of the Schengen member countries, even seemingly improbable scenarios cannot be ruled out,” Volynkin warned.

One and a half month queues for Schengen appeared in the visa centers in Russia Business

After the start of the special operation in Ukraine, several countries at once issued a call to stop issuing visas to Russian citizens. Thus, the Belgian Minister for Refugees, Sammy Mahdi, said that the European Union should consider stopping the issuance of all types of visas to Russian citizens, since "at the moment, Russians are not welcome here." Later, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki made a similar statement.

Some states immediately moved from calls to action: they suspended the issuance of visas to Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the Czech Republic. The latter decided to temporarily stop issuing residence permits, and in June Prague extended the restrictions until 2023. In July, the idea to suspend the issuance of visas was supported by the Finnish Parliament.

At the same time, after the removal of COVID travel restrictions from both Europe and Russia, Russians have an increased demand for visas to the EU. In mid-July, one and a half month queues arose at the visa centers for the issuance of entry documents. At the same time, experts interviewed by RBC noted that the demand was superimposed on the lack of employees of visa centers.

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Before the pandemic , Russia topped the list of countries whose citizens applied for a visa to the Schengen countries. In 2019, Russians submitted about 4 million applications for Schengen visas, or more than 23% of all applications. In 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic began and many countries closed their borders, 635,000 Schengen visas were issued to Russians.