NEW YORK, August 17. /TASS/. Western countries’ moves to restrict the issuance of visas to Russian nationals are "naive and misguided," Anthony Constantini wrote in a Newsweek article.
"There is a new kind of Russia sanction gaining steam across the West: visa and residency bans for Russian citizens," he noted, adding: "It is only a matter of time until such a notion gains steam in the United States as well."
According to Constantini, "these bans are na·ve and misguided." "They may come from a good place - a desire to end the war in Ukraine. But there is no reason to believe that they would do anything at all to achieve that goal," he pointed out. In the author’s view, "essentially, visa and residence permit bans are sanctions of spite" as "absolutely no positive change will come of them" because they won’t have the impact on Russian society that the West desires.
"It is not shocking that Ukraine is demanding this of the West: at this point, they understandably are throwing everything at the wall and hoping something sticks. But we do not have to do the same. Enough with the sanctions of spite," Constantini concluded.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said earlier in an interview with the Washington Post that Western countries should ban entry to all Russians. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, in turn, called on EU countries to ban the issuance of tourist visas to Russian nationals. According to her, visiting Europe is a privilege and not a human right. The Finnish Foreign Ministry stated that the country could introduce restrictions if a large number of Russians sought to travel to other European countries using visas issued by Finland.
Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, commenting on those initiatives, that there was no use trying to isolate Russia and Russians. According to Peskov, some countries forget everything because of their unfriendly attitude to Moscow.