“FOUR months after Moscow invaded his nation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on Friday that Kyiv plans to introduce visas for Russians on July 1.
Ukraine is introducing a visa regime for citizens of the Russian Federation,” Zelensky said on his Telegram account. He said the requirement would take effect on “July 1, 2022”, according to a government decision that he expected “today.”
The decision puts an end to Russians’ ability to travel without a visa, which started in 1991 after Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union.
Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff for Zelensky, stated that the action was being made to strengthen his nation’s defenses and in response to Russia’s invasion, which started on February 24.
“Due to the full-scale war launched by the Russian Federation, we need to strengthen the control over the entry of Russian nationals into our territory. Security is a priority.”
The two neighbors have close family ties and a border that spans about 2,300 kilometers (1,400 miles).
However, after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula, which sparked a conflict with Kremlin-backed pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, the number of Russians visiting Ukraine significantly decreased.
10.8 million Russians visited Ukraine in 2013, but just 2.5 million did so in 2014. Andrey Demchenko, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s border guards, told AFP that between 2015 and 2019, it further decreased to about 1.5 million annually.
According to him, less than 500,000 Russian travelers left the country annually in 2020 and 2021 as the Covid pandemic spread.
Liberal Russians fleeing President Vladimir Putin’s autocratic government have found refuge in Ukraine, where the language is widely spoken and where two pro-democracy uprisings have taken place since 2004.
According to AFP, approximately 175,000 Russians held resident cards in Ukraine by the end of January.
However, given that Ukraine has never had a visa requirement for Russia, the actual number is probably far higher.
