The three Baltic Sea states—Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland are today jointly implementing further restrictive measures to reduce the number of Russians who can enter their territory, in retaliation for the war in Ukraine.
As of today, all four countries will no longer allow Russians with visas guaranteeing them access to the Schengen area to enter for tourism, business, sporting, or cultural activities.
Some exceptions are provided for, for example in cases of Russian permanent residents of these countries, dissidents, and for humanitarian reasons.
Already, all four countries had practically stopped issuing such visas and permanent residence permits to Russians on their territory.
Although Russian citizens with Schengen visas (26 countries) were previously able to enter the Schengen area via the four countries, this is no longer possible as of today. Russians with Schengen visas are prohibited from entering, regardless of which country issued them.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas urged other European Union member states to ban Russians from entering their countries. The measure has been met with strong reservations and objections from other governments.
«We must use all the tools at our disposal to force Russia to end this war,» Ms. Callas argued on Saturday.
