OPINION
Under a Nov. 6 decision by the European Commission, most Russian passport holders will no longer be issued multiple-entry Schengen visas when applying at consulates located in Russia. EU member states still have the right to issue multi-entry visas of up to five years at their discretion, but only in exceptional circumstances involving certain categories of Russian passport holders. The Commission justified the new restrictions by citing Russia’s ongoing aggressive war against Ukraine and “potential security risks” to EU countries that include the danger posed by “hybrid threats.” International law does not recognize the concept of “collective responsibility based on nationality” and the measures will inevitably harm those Russians who are most vulnerable to persecution by the Putin regime, writes international law expert Gleb Bogush. The EU could have adopted far more effective measures, such as a more assertive expansion of personal sanctions lists or intensifying efforts to prosecute Kremlin officials for the crime of aggression.
What the European Commission’s decision provides
On Nov. 6, the European Commission adopted a new implementing decision that significantly limit Russian citizens’ access to multi-entry visas from EU countries. The Commission’s decision is binding on EU member states. It is not merely a “recommendation.” Under Article 291 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, member states delegate to the Commission the authority to determine how existing EU legislation — in this case, the Visa Code — should be applied. The decision was approved in advance by all member states in the visa committee.
The decision does not affect the exclusive sovereign powers of member states and does not overturn the provisions of the Visa Code as they apply to Russians. The same visa regime with the same types of visas remains in place. However, the procedure for obtaining visas has become significantly stricter.
Under the new rules, a multiple-entry visa may be issued only to close relatives of EU citizens and residents, and to transport workers for a period of nine months under the same conditions. In both cases, it can be valid for one year, provided that two prior visas were used within two years.
Member states retain the option, in exceptional cases, to issue multiple-entry visas to applicants who demonstrate the need or provide justification for traveling frequently or regularly to the EU; such applicants must prove their good faith and reliability. That means an applicant must show lawful use of previous visas, stable economic circumstances in the country of origin, and a genuine intention to leave EU territory before the visa expires. In such cases, a consulate may issue a multiple-entry visa valid for up to five years.
The European Commission noted that this option may be appropriate, in particular, for “dissidents, independent journalists, human rights defenders, representatives of civil society organizations, or other vulnerable categories of persons, as well as their family members.”
The new rules, as the document’s title and text make clear, apply only to applications submitted at consulates located inside Russia. Consular jurisdiction will be strictly enforced, meaning that those living in Russia will not be able to bypass the restrictions by traveling abroad to submit an application.
As a result, Russians living in third countries will also face substantial obstacles if they cannot clearly demonstrate lawful and stable residence in the consular district where they apply. It is also important to remember that in September 2022, Brussels tightened the rules for accepting visa applications from Russians in third countries, including Kazakhstan, Serbia, Turkey, and the UAE. Moreover, the EU has been pressuring states — especially EU candidate countries such as Montenegro and Serbia — to tighten their migration regimes and, ultimately, to introduce visas for Russian citizens.
Russian citizens as a security threat to the EU
Unlike measures adopted by several EU countries in 2022, this European Commission decision does not appear to contradict EU law. On the surface, it is balanced and cannot be described as discriminatory. Still, the measure raises questions about its rationale and side effects it may produce.
The Commission justifies its decision by citing “migration and security risks” associated with Russian applicants. Russia’s use of migration as a weapon and its sponsorship of acts of sabotage, cyber and industrial espionage threats, and the “potential misuse of visas for promoting propaganda supporting [Russia’s] war of aggression” require enhanced scrutiny, the Commission argues.
Russia’s use of migration as a weapon and its sponsorship of acts of sabotage, cyber and industrial espionage threats, and the “potential misuse of visas for promoting propaganda supporting the war of aggression” require enhanced scrutiny, the Commission argues.
This may sound persuasive, but there is no public evidence that Russians using multiple-entry visas have been involved in sabotage or subversion. Recent cases in Germany involved actual German citizens (even if some are dual citizens), not “tourists” flying in and out on five-year visas.
The Commission’s document clearly assumes that Russian citizens, by virtue of their nationality, pose a security risk to the EU. It states (citing an assessment) that people with other nationalities who live in Russia present a lower security risk, and therefore the new restrictions do not apply to them.
Visa restrictions as “collective responsibility” for Russians
EU High Representative and Commission Vice President Kaja Kallas, commenting on the decision, said: “It is hardly reasonable to start a war and at the same time expect free movement in Europe.” The statement, made in an official capacity, effectively frames the measure as a sanction taken in response to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. This position is problematic both legally and in practice. Wars — especially wars of aggression — are waged by states, and the crime of aggression is committed by individuals in a leadership position. International law does not recognize the “collective responsibility of citizens” as a concept.
International law does not recognize the “collective responsibility of citizens” as a concept.
If the measures are intended as a collective sanction for Russian citizens, it remains unclear what behavior is expected of them and how the effectiveness of such a “sanction” is to be measured. Assigning blame to a population of 140 million people — including those who publicly oppose the war and face risks for doing so — appears unjustified.
True, the emotional reactions of many antiwar Russians who criticize the measure are sometimes excessive and morally ambiguous. But that does not resolve the questions surrounding the logic of the measure itself.
Discrimination? Visa restrictions and human rights
Starting with her tenure as Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas has repeated the following mantra: “Visiting Europe is a privilege, not a human right.” In a narrow legal sense, this is partly true — no one has a general right to enter a foreign state without the appropriate authorization.
But the EU is not a “state.” It is a legal order that obligates its institutions and member states to apply EU law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. This means actions taken in Brussels must comply with core human-rights obligations, including the protection of refugees. As a result, broad measures that stigmatize an entire national group as a “security threat” look very much like collective punishment, particularly when justified by the actions of their state’s leadership.
As with other such forms of “collective sanctions,” the EU visa measures not only affect those who have no connection to the state´s wrongdoings — they disproportionately impact those who resist the criminal regime. On top of that, the EU’s decision comes against a backdrop not only of an escalating war in Ukraine, but of escalating repression inside Russia.
Of particular concern is the shrinking space for protecting persecuted groups and individual victims of the dictatorial regime. Starting this past summer, Germany has effectively suspended its “humanitarian visas” program, which helped Russian dissidents, journalists, and human-rights defenders leave their country of citizenship and reside legally in Germany.
Even before the most recent EU-wide measures, persecuted Russians already faced a shrinking set of options for seeking asylum in Europe. Rather than using bureaucratic euphemisms like “migration risk,” it is important to state plainly what is happening: the visa restrictions are being introduced precisely to reduce the number of asylum applications.
Consequences
The visa regime for Russian citizens was already significantly tightened in 2022 after the start of the full-scale invasion. First, the simplified procedure — which applied only to specific categories of applicants — was suspended. Overall, the decision was intended to sharply reduce visa issuance to Russians and strengthen controls. However, this did not lead to a noticeable increase in visa refusals.
Moreover, a number of states that share land borders with Russia, as well as Denmark and the Czech Republic, stopped issuing visas to Russians altogether except in limited cases. Border states went even further: they barred entry even to Russians with valid visas issued by other EU countries. With no direct flights from Russia to Europe, travel to the EU became extremely expensive and burdensome even with a visa. This has already caused a drastic drop in the number of travelers with visas, including the much-discussed “tourists.” For this reason, the new measure will further decrease the already weakened flow of Russians, but likely not dramatically.
A key question remains, and it is not addressed in the Commission’s decision or officials’ comments: why is heightened control impossible under the existing system, which is already unfavorable for Russians? What exactly have been the effects of the measures adopted in 2022? And have there been any positive outcomes at all?
The inevitable adverse impact of the new measures will fall on the small group of Russians for whom these exceptions were actually designed. As a result, meetings with close relatives will increasingly take place in third countries — not always safe ones, especially given some post-Soviet states’ cooperation with the Russian authorities. Additionally, for many vulnerable Russians, a multiple-entry visa was a “quick exit” safeguard — a way to leave Russia swiftly and legally if the situation deteriorated. These visas have indeed saved many dissident Russians’ freedom, and in some cases, their lives.
For many, a multiple-entry visa was a “quick exit” safeguard — a way to leave Russia swiftly and legally if the situation deteriorated.
Russian law-enforcement personnel and members of the military are banned by the Russian side from entering “unfriendly countries” — they are not the ones applying for visas. However, the new measures effectively deprive young professionals and students of the chance to establish legal pathways out of the country in case of danger.
The current measure is also unlikely to meaningfully affect security within the EU. Holders of Schengen visas pose minimal risk, and the measure does not apply to Russian diplomats and other officials who are occasionally granted entry rights in order to attend specific functions. EU member states are still free to issue residence permits, including to employees of Russian state institutions, as is done by Hungary. (Budapest, notably, raised no objections to the visa “sanctions,” even as it continues to act as a pro-Putinist force inside the EU.)
The risks inherent in “targeted exceptions” should not be overlooked. There will be few such “exclusive” multi-entry visas, creating additional risks for dissidents themselves. Amid rising repression, merely applying for such a visa may expose a person to danger given that much of the process runs through commercial visa centers controlled by or closely linked to Russian security services. Confidential information could easily end up in the hands of those same repressive agencies.
Public reaction and the problem of priorities
The EU’s decision sparked an emotional wave on social media, but genuinely substantive criticism of the policy had nothing to do with the “difficulty vacationing in Europe.” Many of the world’s most anti-Putin voices are questioning the goals and priorities of Europe’s Russia policy: effective measures against the Kremlin regime are not being adopted, while symbolic restrictions on citizens are being pushed through relatively quickly. At the same time, rhetoric that echoes Putin’s logic of the people’s unity with the dictator is being used — a logic hardly compatible with the widespread repression on display inside Russia itself. Many argue such decisions aid Putin’s propaganda efforts at home.
Targeted measures would look far more credible: war crimes investigations, the issuing of arrest warrants, and expanding sanctions lists on an individual basis. Currently, personal sanctions remain ineffective because they are applied too rarely and, in many cases, too late.
Kaja Kallas has accused all Russian citizens of the crime of aggression, but the creation of a special tribunal for that crime is still unfinished. Due to the efforts of some EU members, even once such a judicial body is operational, the tribunal will be powerless against senior officials — the “leadership troika” of the president, prime minister, and foreign minister — unless they leave office.
In Putin’s case, this effectively means immunity for as long as he manages to hold onto power. Meanwhile, individual states are undermining international justice and violating their own legal obligations — Hungary, for example, was prepared to host Putin despite the warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court. Symbolic visa barriers cannot substitute for such decisions and do not enhance real security in the EU.
EU strategy toward Russia
This raises a broader question: does the EU, and the West more broadly, have a coherent strategy concerning the Russian government and engagement with Russian society? The visa decision is based on the presumption that Russians constitute a generalized “security threat,” with humanitarian exceptions allowed only individually. But how productive is a strategy of isolation, especially amid a prolonged confrontation? In my view, it is not productive whatsoever.
Excessive isolation of those segments of Russian society that still retain some agency restricts everyone’s access to reliable information about developments inside Russia and narrows the space for engagement. By acting against such interaction, Brussels risks forming an airtight bureaucratic “echo chamber” that will struggle to make thoughtful and effective decisions.
And finally, there is the human dimension. War always leads — and in the case of Russia’s most recent unprovoked aggression, it has already led — to mutual dehumanization. It is past time for this process to be stopped.
For Russians, this means resisting excessive emotional reactions to demagoguery, maintaining dignity and, above all, remembering to highlight the fact that the primary victims of the ongoing war are Ukrainians. For the EU, it means balancing security with its own principles, thereby keeping open the channels through which dialogue can be continued with those Russians who remain potential partners in the development of a European continent that is whole, free, and at peace.