US visa action sparks angry Russia reaction
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THE United States began to sharply scale back its visa services in Russia yesterday, drawing an angry reaction from Moscow, three weeks after President Vladimir Putin ordered Washington to more than halve its embassy and consular staff.
The move, which will hit business travelers, tourists and students, was the latest in a series of bilateral measures that have driven relations to a new post-Cold War low, thwarting hopes on both sides that relations might improve after Donald Trump took office as president in January.
The US embassy said it was suspending all non-immigrant visa operations across Russia tomorrow and that when they resumed, on September 1, they would be offered “on a greatly reduced scale.”
Beginning yesterday, it would be canceling an unspecified number of appointments and asking applicants to reschedule, the embassy said.
“Capacity for interviews in the future will be greatly reduced because we have had to greatly reduce our staffing levels to comply with the Russian government’s requirement,” the embassy told applicants in an announcement on its website.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the US initiative looked like an attempt to provoke ill-feeling among ordinary Russians against the authorities.
“The American authors of these decisions have come up with another attempt to stir up discontent among Russian citizens about the actions of the Russian authorities,” Lavrov told reporters.
Lavrov added the US visa move had a “political overtone” and that Moscow would consider how best to respond.
The American reaction means that Russian citizens wanting to visit the United States for business, tourism or educational reasons will no longer be able to apply via US consulates outside Moscow and will have to travel to the Russian capital instead.
That will pose a serious logistical challenge for many Russians, whose country, the world’s largest by territory, stretches across 11 time zones.
The United States has consulates in St Petersburg, Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg.
The chain of tit-for-tat American and Russian measures began last December when the outgoing US President Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats over allegations that Moscow had meddled in the US presidential election, which the Russians denied.
Putin refrained from retaliating at the time, but last month, after the US Congress overwhelmingly approved new sanctions against Russia, he ordered Washington to reduce its diplomatic and technical staff in Russia by 755 people, or about 60 percent, by September 1.
Russia said earlier this month that the United States had issued around 150,000 visas to Russian citizens last year.
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