"This is a death blow to the opposition!" Experts - on the abolition of Euro visas for Russians

As Novye Izvestia has already reported, the European Parliament plans to consider a proposal to nullify all valid visas for Russians in the near future. The initiative has already been officially supported by Belgium. In addition, the Czech Republic and Latvia announced that they would stop issuing visas to Russian citizens.

Meanwhile, it is quite clear that this measure, if adopted, will seriously affect the position of the Russian oppositionists, many of whom in recent years have been forced to seek political asylum in European countries, including, by the way, in Georgia and Ukraine.

Here is what the famous Russian psychologist Polina Aronson, who left Russia and recently received German citizenship, writes in her publication on this subject:

"Just on the eve of the Russian "special operation" we discussed this issue with the well-known researcher of political emigration from Russia, Daria Skibo, and my husband, an EU security specialist from the German Foundation for Science and Politics (SWP).

I want to tell my friends in Russia: far from all European policy makers (eng: influential politicians) are ready to support this monstrous idea (Belgium's initiative, ed.), which will finally finish off everything that is already barely breathing in Russia. There are also those who will fight to, on the contrary, support humanitarian exchange, advocate for the recognition of political refugee from this crazy country - and think about other measures. This cannot be allowed…”

Daria Skibo herself recently published a study on Russian emigration, in which she came to the following conclusions:

“The main gag is that 'political' migrants are hard to count because 1) there are no normal departure statistics and 2) they dissolve in different categories of visas/permits to stay in Germany. Local and European laws understand political migration as associated with persecution and insecurity in the country of origin, that is, in order to count such people, one must, as it were, look at refugees and those who seek political asylum.

But people often leave not because a criminal case has been opened against them or because the state machine has somehow stepped on their rights, but because there is nothing to breathe and tomorrow they will come for them. This is on the one hand. On the other hand, even those who have good reason to apply for protection in the EU or elsewhere are often reluctant to do so. Well, because such statuses impose different restrictions. So many who could be called "political" move to study, work, on cultural exchange visas and all sorts of other things. And there is nothing wrong with that, everything is clear just…”