The Russian Foreign Ministry resumed issuing ten-year passports

According to Kommersant, citing data from the Consular Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, ten-year passports have not been issued since August 26. The reason for the temporary refusals to accept documents at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was the need to reformat the electronic media.

“From September 20, the acceptance of applications for the issuance of a new generation passport with a validity period of ten years is resumed,” the message says.

Since August 26, refusals to issue passports of a new type began to come from the Russian embassies in Latvia, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Germany, Sweden and Turkey.

For a period of temporary technical difficulties, applicants were offered an alternative option - issuing old-style international passports without electronic media, the validity of such documents is five years.

Earlier it became known that only 29% of Russian citizens have international passports, and only 2% of the population have Schengen visas. Over the past 10 years, 80% of Russians have not been abroad.