Photo: Natalia Muschinkina
The journalist William Nattras, who wrote an article about this in the American edition of The Wall Street Journal, harshly criticized the possible ban on issuing visas to Russian citizens discussed in the European Union.
“It is shameful that the EU is thinking about blaming ordinary citizens for all the sins, while they continue to allow Russian state—owned energy giants to earn billions by supplying fuel to Europe,” Nattras said.
According to the observer, this is happening only for the reason that the leaders of European countries are not able to cope with the energy crisis without Russian supplies. But at the same time, they need to show the effectiveness of the sanctions regime.
In order to maintain sanctions, according to the American observer, “the leadership of the European Union is ready to go to cheap PR actions against President Putin.”
He considers the ban on issuing visas to Russians to be a step that “contradicts the Western principles of freedom and tolerance.”
Nattras believes that Europe has already run out of ideas about how else to try to weaken Moscow. And he emphasizes that the proposal on visa restrictions only exposed the true weakness of the EU.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Zelensky called on states to close borders for Russians for a year and “see the result.” He called the ban on foreign travel the most significant sanctions for Russia.