Dispute over visa allocation – Berlin and Paris want to let Russians travel

Germany and France are jointly speaking out against a far-reaching entry ban for Russian citizens in the EU. "We should think about clever ways to use the important lever of issuing visas," says a position paper sent to the other member states for the meeting of foreign ministers this Tuesday and Wednesday in Prague. Applications from Russian nationals should be carefully scrutinized for possible security risks. At the same time, one should not underestimate the impact of direct experience of life in democracies. This applies in particular to future generations.

"Our visa policy should reflect this and continue to enable interpersonal contacts with Russian nationals in the EU who are not connected to the Russian government," says the paper, which is available to the German Press Agency. They therefore want to maintain a legal framework that allows students, artists, scientists and specialists in particular to enter the EU - regardless of whether they could be threatened with political persecution.

One warns against far-reaching restrictions of the visa policy. It is important to prevent the Russian narrative from being fed and from alienating future generations. In addition, so-called "rally around the flag" effects could occur. This means that citizens sometimes tend to stand united behind their leadership in the event of attacks and provocations from outside.

The background to the German-French position is the discussion that has been going on for days about whether Russians should be prevented from traveling to the EU for shopping trips and vacations, while thousands of people are dying in Ukraine because of the war.

Before the meeting of EU foreign ministers in Prague, Austria reiterated its opposition to entry bans for Russian tourists. "We must not throw out the baby with the bath water, a blanket ban on visas for Russian nationals would completely cut off the last contacts with Russian civil society," Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg told the "Welt" on Tuesday. "It would be absurd to block the way to the West for critical voices in Russia right now."

The Kremlin's news embargo is obscuring the Russian population's view of the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, the minister said. “A visa freeze would also be counterproductive in the fight against the Russian propaganda machine. If we block the door to Europe for the Russian population across the board, that would only fuel the camp mentality propagated by the Kremlin.”

According to a US media report, Iran has sent the first drones to Russia for use in Ukraine. As the Washington Post reported on Monday, citing intelligence sources, at least two different types of unmanned aircraft were delivered on August 19.

These could be used to fire on radar systems, artillery and other military objects. However, the Russian armed forces had to contend with numerous malfunctions during the first tests. The Russians are "not satisfied". According to the report, the US government expects Iran to deliver hundreds more drones to Moscow.

The United States said in July that they assumed Russia would want to acquire Iranian combat drones. A Russian government delegation apparently visited an Iranian airport for a demonstration of attackable drones, it said. Putin also traveled to Iran's capital, Tehran, for a summit meeting with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts in July.