Dogs in the manger?
Russia wants to prevent Ukraine joining Europe. So, should Russians be free to travel there?
This article was initially published in LinkedIn on 30 August 2022. The Visaguide references are of recent date. Most recent is the preface, added on 12 April 2023.
Preface
On a day like today, after catching but a headline, my thoughts immediately turned to ISIS.
So I googled “ISIS Russia” and got Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
On a day like today, Zelenskyy's thoughts also immediately turned to ISIS.
But we were both wrong. Instead, we should be thinking “MS-13”
I don't know if ISIS still believes it’s fighting a cause.
I don't know whether Russia thinks it’s fighting a cause.
But I know that MS-13 isn’t fighting a cause.
It’s fighting over a girl.1
That’s how senseless its killing is.
And that’s how senseless this killing was.
Like MS-13, Russia is fighting for blood, and blood is no cause.
It is a depth not yet deep enough.
The Russian visa question
When Immigration ask, “Business or pleasure?”, one might be tempted to think that work cannot be pleasurable, or that vacations can’t be hard graft. If the traveller is Russian, the answer may not always be as straightforward as one expects, however.
Germany and France want to keep allowing Russian citizens to come to the EU on holiday – on tourist visas. Scandinavian and Baltic states, to which Russians often travel to embark on Schengen-wide travel itineraries, see it differently. They’d like a ban.
What divides the two schools of thought are the counter-productive effects, as Germany and France see them, of a ban. They describe these as the encouragement of rally-round-the-flag events and estranging future generations. What do they mean?
“Z” rallies
Around Europe, since the start of hostilities in Ukraine, there have been manifestations by Russians, who wear the Z symbol and wave their national flag. They’re a demonstration of pride in, and support for, their country and its stance against Ukraine. I do not oppose them, but I do not like them. I would go so far as to say I find them repugnant: there are, I know, some in Russia who would happily stand me up against a wall and shoot me, so the warmth of my welcome is limited to the “legally necessary”.
It is hard to dissociate Russians’ support for their country, in places like Dublin and Berlin, from the notion that they would deny me the same liberal freedom in their country. I don’t believe EU citizens could, or that it would be wise, if they even could, to travel to Moscow and start parading with national flags. Especially the blue-sky-and-sun flag of Russia’s opponent. Russians who rally around their flag in foreign places do so out of vainglorious pride and a certain gung-ho bravado. They can do so because they have visas to be where they do it. I don’t believe that refusing Russian tourist visas would make Z rallies more common. In fact it might just make them rarer. But allowing or banning them wouldn’t change one iota the reasons for which they are held.
Fifth columnists
It’s an old-fashioned term, but basically means “the enemy within.” No one is deluded into believing a liberal western democracy is free from Big Brother’s surveillance. It’s just freer (probably) than things are in Russia. However, movement is free, access to the Internet is free, the expression of ideas is unrestricted in the West, regardless of the situation yonder. The West is not at war with Russia, however; Ukraine is. But, on many a score, that is but a technicality: a lucky one, since it means Russia isn’t bombing me. For others, it makes no difference. If we were in fact at war with Russia, there would be no expression of Russian support by Russians here – they’d be in jail or interned or deported. So, should Russians have free movement as citizens engaged in a war that my countries are lending military support towards resisting? Perhaps we could grant Russians a visa and ask them to sign an agreement not to indulge in sedition whilst they are here.
The vacation ethic
Everyone deserves a holiday. They didn’t before Thomas Cook took 500 visitors to a teetotal rally by railway from Leicester to Loughborough in 1841: the first package tour. Now tourism is trite. Russians like to holiday in the EU, it seems. So do Germans, with their towels. Some resorts welcome German towels before they welcome Russians, although the bill is the bill and, some say, who pays it is of no importance, as long as it’s paid. When I worked in tourism, waves of tourists came in different years from different parts of the world to Europe: the US, Japan, China, India, Korea and Russia. The Japanese had their own hotel in Paris, the Nikko; elsewhere tourists got the treatment they were willing to pay for at the resorts at which they were willing to pay for it. Tourists, after all, come from somewhere else.
Whilst any friend of yours may be a friend of mine, by the same token, less welcome are tourists that my friends don’t like. The Russian visitors are being examined by some on account of their country’s politics. I’m not sure whether that was previously the case, for travellers of any nationality. Paris was at one time almost traditionally anti-American. They were uncannily made to feel unwanted in the French capital. Things have changed, but few Parisians had antipathy to Americans when they were liberated by them in 1944.
Do different considerations apply now? Yes, in a way they do. Whether my café serves you as a guest, foreign or otherwise, is up to me. I have a wide discretion on who I allow to sit on my terrace and sup beer. What I have no discretion about is whether that person can enter my country – it’s a discretion that lies with the authorities. However, I may be able to put pressure on the authorities to do something about dog poo on the pavements (an important policy issue in tourist areas of Paris, for instance), but immigration policy is less clearly within my grasp. Many in Scandinavia want it in their grasp. If I don’t want to serve a customer, I don’t really need to say why. If people don’t want Russians coming to their town, perhaps they also don’t need to say why, or why Russians are different from anyone else. There is consistency in this inconsistency, because free choice doesn’t need to be consistent. It’s sort-of inherent in the word free.
Harassing Ukrainians who’ve sought safety in our bosom
In Lithuania, that I know of, and, likely, in other places, Russian tourists have accosted Ukrainian nationals – recognisable from their language or national symbols – in the open street and insisted that they speak Russian to them. These are people who are shell-shocked, frightened and scared for their lives and their livelihoods, who have sought refuge in the warm bosom of the EU, which they will one day join, in brotherhood. It is bad if refugees receive short shrift from a country’s nationals, but it is unbecoming for such cold shoulder treatment to come from nationals of another country.
If I invited guests to my home and then one of them started to attack the other for being in my home, I would certainly have something to say on that score. I think I would kindly ask the aggressor to leave forthwith, and to never return. And that is what I think the EU’s governments also ought to do. And, because the potential for repeated such action is not to be neglected, I would simply tell all Russians to stay at home. A staycation in the biggest country in the world cannot be such a great hardship to have to bear. I mean, at least they all speak Russian there, and not some non-existent foreign lingo.
Estranging future generations
Russia is at war with Ukraine. So, it is understandable that Ukrainians are against Russia. Should the rest of us also be against Russia? Many of us have vaunted the slogan “stand with Ukraine”, as have many of our governments. They supply Ukraine with weapons (it can be argued they also indirectly supply Russia with them); they institute sanctions against Russia and some of its citizens. But not visa bans. Maybe we need to reform the slogan into “stand a bit with Ukraine, but not totally.” Standing with Ukraine means deciding which side of the line to stand on, the line that separates Ukraine and Russia. In rugby, on the line is out of play. In football, on the line is in play. The line is a disputed area, depending on the sport. The line is a favoured area for political policy but it is the line that is fought over in wars. Quite honestly, if you stand with Ukraine, and Ukraine is against Russian visitors (with or without a gun in their hand), then you should decide where you stand on this matter as well.
I said once that it will take maybe 300 years for the acidic relations between Ukraine and Russia to heal. That could be exaggerated, and it could be a vast underestimation. But their future generations, even at a distance of 50 years, are unlikely to be those of the best of pals. I cannot see, with even the most blue-eyed optimism, why this vain hope of averting estrangement can play even the slightest role in the current discussion.
The politicians who vaunt it can hardly lay claim to having had any such Nostradamus-like foresight in the past. Germany’s relations with other countries have proved more to be governed by the price of fuel than a sense of bonhomie. Perhaps that’s what they mean: less Gastfreundschaft, more Gasfreundschaft.
Are we next?
We can still, after a year and more of war, have no certainty as to what ambitions Russia might harbour concerning the rest of the EU, France and Germany included. What puzzles me in all this is Putin’s putative opinion of M Macron and Herr Scholtz: it’s not all too high. Should I smirk as the thought occurs to me that the Franco-German alliance here is seeking to prop up, not Europe’s, but their own standing, not in Brussels, but in Moscow? To what end would that be?
Strength and weakness: SWAT or swot?
Michael Khodorkovsky (the Russian former oil exile), and others with insider tracks on things Kremlin, including some whose utterances came to the fore following the murder of Miss Dugina, have made repeatedly clear that Moscow understands two things: strength, which causes them to up theirs; and weakness, which invites them to ignore or attack. The UN is weak: it is ignored or overruled. Mr Zelenskiy is weak: he is attacked. Supposing there were no Russian visa ban, does anyone really imagine that the Russians would have come to the EU and said a big “Thank you”? Can anyone remember the last time Russia said, “Thank you”? It’s no far-fetched idea that, when Putin sealed his limitless cooperation with China, he even muttered under his breath, “And so you bloody should.” Maybe Xi did as well.
Refusing Russians tourist visas, in the end, prevents them getting up a lot of people’s noses in the West. One could snidely ask, “Ain’t that reason enough?” Well, it isn’t, in fact. Because western democracy is all about putting up with people we don’t like. And not shooting hypersonic missiles at them.
Visas based on policy: shared values, or favoured relations
A story did the rounds some time ago of a man who approached fraught airline ground staff at a US airport, who were endeavouring to accommodate a large number of people who had been bounced off a cancelled flight. He pushed his way through the madding crowd and voiced a demand that he should be given a seat on the next flight to wherever it was he was headed. When asked to “kindly wait a minute”, he responded with, “Do you know who I am?” To this, the official had a ready and, I think, humorous response. She said nothing to the gentleman, but leaned into an intercom and announced to the entire airport, “Can we please have security and medical attention at this desk? We have a person here with amnesia: he has lost his memory and no longer knows who he is.”
The incident caused great hilarity among those present, and among those who read about it afterwards. It was an astute use of humour, which came as relief to hard-pressed staff and irate fellow travellers, who also wanted, for their own reasons, to be put on the flight in question but, as it happened, had as little claim to privileged treatment as the gentleman in question. They certainly knew who they were.
The man’s brashness is no reason to refuse him a seat that is paid for and rightfully his. His lack of understanding for the travails of staff trying to reallocate passengers to other machines is, likewise, no reason to refuse him his seat. Our sense of indignation, however, impels us to want to put the man to the back of the queue; our sense of liberal justice, however, impels us to deal with his claim in due course and as befits his status and position as an ordinary paying passenger. His “fuss” may be a product of his personality, or it may be an acquired characteristic, proving, as they do, time and again, that it will always be the squeaky wheel that gets the oil.
After this paper was published in its initial form, on 9 September 2022, the EU suspended the reciprocity agreement it had with Russia, Tourist visas are not in any case issued willy-nilly. For nationals of some countries, they are granted easily, barring any grave objection, on the basis of reciprocity and shared values, such as Britons and EU citizens travelling to Canada or the USA and vice versa. For Africans travelling to Europe, as also now for Russians, obtaining a tourist visa is more problematic. They must fulfil a great number of much more stringent requirements. These are a matter of policy, based on a fear that tourists may become illegal residents or pose a danger to the country being visited.
As a result, the automatic right of Russian citizens to acquire a tourist visa to enter the EU is also subject to policy considerations. When Russians were mobilised to join their army a while ago, many fled their homeland for other places such as Georgia. Georgia is under treaty obligations to allow Russians a residence visa for two years. They could not refuse them entry. I’m slightly surprised that Russia didn’t refuse them exit, however, but it was presumably all according to what was due and proper, since the individuals in question had not actually received call-up papers at the time they fled.
Why they fled is open to question. Obviously, to avoid being called up. Others who were called up were dead within a fortnight. So, perhaps the fleers didn’t want to die. Not yet. Or to die in the service of their nation. Or perhaps they wanted to plan the downfall of their government. If so, they’re taking their time (though dissidents are offered special facilities to come to the EU). Perhaps they’re against the war in Ukraine. Perhaps they support it, but don’t want to fight it: they want others to fight it for them. I cannot look into the reasons why they flee. But flee they do.
But I can look into the reasons why Mr Putin remains in power and does so regardless of whether the Russian people support or object to his Ukraine policy. The support he enjoys in Russia is manufactured, bolstered by oppression and, therefore, may be false. Russia is a formidable enemy and it would please many nations in Europe if it would simply pack up its tanks and go home. This it is not prepared yet to do, if at all. What would persuade it to do so is defeat on the battlefield or, possibly, defeat at the polls.
One gains interesting insights into the Russian condition when one hears of conversations between Ukrainians and their Russian occupiers. There are widespread claims that Russian troops pilfer electrical appliances from their unwilling Ukrainian hosts. But, they allegedly steal kettles and leave behind the base, which is an essential component of the device, by which it is able to boil water. The troops who do this seemingly have no understanding of how such devices work, and yet they are commonplace elsewhere; maybe not in Russia. And some Russians wonder at the absence in Ukraine of communal bathing facilities. In Ukraine, homes commonly have a bathroom, where the occupant may bathe in privacy. It’s a feature absent in many Russian homes. However, automatic kettles and private bathrooms are mere anecdotal evidence, but evidence that comes on top of an overall impression that hardship is a large part of the Russian existence. Many Russians are, themselves, brazen to this hardship, so that they dismiss it as normalcy. We outside Russia know one thing at least, and that is that it’s a hardship that has not to date moved them to raise protest with the government.
And yet the prospect of defeating the Moscow regime from outside Russia is, at best, a daunting and, at worst, impossible one. Assuming that regime change in Moscow would be a very welcome occurrence for the West, the stark conclusion is that no such thing will happen unless it be Russians themselves who procure it. For as long as there is no hardship that impels them to rise up against their masters in the Kremlin, its likelihood remains remote.
The status quo ante bellum belongs to the period ante bellum
Given the policy considerations in restricting access by Africans and others to tourist visas for Europe, it is in light of the need for regime change that objecting to the free travel by Russians in the European Union is, I believe, most persuasive; because obliging them to vacation elsewhere is, if in small measure, nevertheless an important statement of western attitudes to the fact that, even if the Russian population does not actively support the regime that wreaks this horror on Ukraine, and even if it only condones it passively, and therefore acquiesces in what its government does, not only within Russia’s borders but also outside them, a solution to this upheaval must come in part from within Russia itself. The policy that must be pursued, therefore, is to persuade Russians to change their government. For their sakes, and for all our sakes.
Diplomatically, voicing this is anathema, since it is not a matter for foreign governments to decide who is in power in Russia — that would be colonialism. But, foreign governments have had little to no influence on what the duly chosen government in Moscow does in its recent foreign policy. Aside from diplomacy (and such underhand dealings as may be engaged in, which are outwith my knowledge), telling Russians they can come here on holiday just as soon as they change their government is, in the end, one of the few tools that foreign powers actually have to put a stop to the war in Ukraine — something of the opposite of a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
It made little sense, if this be our policy, to perpetuate the normality of tourist visas for the benefit of Russian nationals in a vain hope that they would nonetheless persuade their government to desist in its furtherance of abnormality.
Where Russians can go with/without a visa
The Visaguide website tells Russians where they can go (in somewhat less drastic terms than the EU website and some Ukrainian bloggers).
It is surprising the countries that still offer Russia visa-less travel. They include many neighbouring countries, like Armenia, Georgia, North Macedonia; much of South America, like Argentina, Colombia and Brazil; and much of the former British Empire, like Fiji, Turks & Caicos Islands, Trinidad and Tobago. Of the 56 sovereign member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, which join together equal in status, and cooperate within a framework of common values and goals (according to the 1971 Singapore Declaration),
14 require Russians to complete a personal visa application
5 will issue an e-visa, online
11 will issue Russians with a visa on arrival in their country
26 will admit Russians without any visa.
Of the 56, none will refuse Russians entry as a blanket policy. But the split would indicate that a framework of common values seems to be lacking in the Commonwealth on this issue, if no other.
Test your inklings. Which Commonwealth members do you think apply which policy? For the full answers, see the tables below.
Country Visa required e-visa Visa on arrival No visa required
Antigua and Barbuda
Australia
Bahamas
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belize
Botswana
Brunei
Cameroon
Canada
Cyprus
Dominica
Eswatini
Fiji
Gabon
Gambia
Ghana
Grenada
Guyana
India
Jamaica
Kenya
Kiribati
Lesotho
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Malta
Mauritius
Mozambique
Namibia
Nauru
New Zealand
Nigeria
Pakistan
Papua New Guinea
Rwanda
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Samoa
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Solomon Islands
South Africa
Sri Lanka
Tanzania
Togo
Tonga
Trinidad and Tobago
Tuvalu
Uganda
United Kingdom
Vanuatu
Zambia
Where a Russian passport will take its holder (full listings)
The places that Russians can travel to are many. The Russian passport ranks worldwide as the 94th most-useful passport, yet still affords them travel to no fewer than 129 countries, on top of category F below, those that require a visa application beforehand (such as the EU member states).
Below are lists taken from the Visaguide website as at 12 April 2023, showing
A. Countries that require no visa
B. Countries that require no passport
C. Countries requiring an ‘internal passport’
D. Countries issuing e-visas
E. Countries issuing visas on arrival
F. Countries requiring a prior visa application
G. Countries operating a blanket ban on Russians
A. Visaguide lists as requiring no visa for Russians to visit, the following:
Albania
Antigua and Barbuda
Argentina
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Barbados
Belarus
Belize
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Botswana
Brazil
Brunei
Chile
Colombia
Cook Islands
Costa Rica
Cuba
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
El Salvador
Eswatini
Fiji
The Gambia
Georgia
Grenada
Guatemala
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
Hong Kong
Indonesia
Iraq
Israel
Jamaica
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Macau
Malaysia
Mauritius
Mexico
Micronesia
Moldova
Mongolia
Montenegro
Morocco
Namibia
Nicaragua
Niue
North Macedonia
Oman
Pakistan
Palau
Palestine
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Qatar
Samoa
São Tomé and Príncipe
Senegal
Serbia
Seychelles
South Africa
South Korea
Sri Lanka
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Suriname
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Thailand
Gambia
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
Turks and Caicos Islands
Türkiye
United Arab Emirates
Uruguay
Uzbekistan
Vanuatu
Venezuela
Vietnam
B. For one country, they don’t even need a passport:
Belarus
C. And for these countries, they can enter with an ‘internal passport’:
Armenia
Belarus
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Tajikistan
D. Some countries will issue a visa without Russians leaving their armchair:
Angola
Benin
Djibouti
Ethiopia
India
Kenya
Kuwait
Lesotho
Montserrat
Singapore
Uganda
E. Some will issue a visa when they arrive:
Bahrain
Burundi
Cambodia
Cabo Verde
Comoros
Egypt
Gabon
Guinea-Bissau
Iran
Jordan
Lebanon
Madagascar
Maldives
Marshall Islands
Mauritania
Mozambique
Myanmar
Nauru
Nepal
Rwanda
Saudi Arabia
Sierra Leone
Somalia
Tanzania
Timor-Leste
Togo
Tonga
Tuvalu
Zambia
Zimbabwe
F. Here are the countries for which Russians need to apply for a visa
(which include all EU member states, the UK, and the ever-forgiving Vatican State):
Afghanistan
Algeria
American Samoa
Andorra
Anguilla
Aruba
Australia
Austria
Bangladesh
Belgium
Bermuda
Bhutan
British Virgin Islands
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Cameroon
Canada
Caribbean Netherlands
Cayman Islands
Central African Republic
Chad
China
Congo (Democratic Republic)
Congo (Republic)
Croatia
Curaçao
Cyprus
Denmark
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Falkland Islands
Faroe Islands
France
French Guiana
French Polynesia
French West Indies
Germany
Ghana
Gibraltar
Greece
Greenland
Guam
Guinea
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Ivory Coast
Japan
Kiribati
Kosovo
Liberia
Libya
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malawi
Mali
Malta
Mayotte
Monaco
Netherlands
New Caledonia
New Zealand
Niger
Nigeria
Northern Mariana Islands
North Korea
Norway
Papua New Guinea
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Réunion
Romania
San Marino
Slovakia
Slovenia
Solomon Islands
South Sudan
Spain
Saint Helena
Saint Martin
Sudan
Sweden
Switzerland
Syria
Turkmenistan
United States Virgin Islands
Ukraine (surprisingly)
United Kingdom
United States of America
Vatican City
Yemen
G. And, finally, the countries that will not admit Russians,
even if they beg on their knees:
Czechia
Estonia
Finland
Latvia
Lithuania
Poland
That’s a stance.
From Wikipedia: MS-13 and 18th Street were initially friendly, since they were some of the only gangs to allow Salvadorans to join. What exactly caused their alliance to fall apart is uncertain. Most versions point to a fight over a girl in 1989. In the incident, an MS-13 gangster was killed, which led to a cycle of vengeance that has escalated into an intense and generalized animosity between the two gangs.