Finland drastically cuts tourist visas for Russians

Finland on Thursday slashed the number of visas issued to Russian citizens to a tenth of the regular amount in a move seen as a show of solidarity with Ukraine.

Finland, which shares the longest border with Russia of all European Union member countries, announced the decision in August amid growing pressure from politicians and ordinary citizens to restrict the movement of Russian tourists through the Nordic country as Moscow continues its war in Ukraine.

“It’s important that we show that at the same time when Ukrainians are suffering, normal tourism shouldn’t continue business as usual,” Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said during the EU foreign ministers meeting in the Czech capital Prague on Wednesday.

Finland will only permit Russians to apply for tourist visas once a week and in just four Russian cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Murmansk and Petrozavodsk close to the Finnish border, as of September 1.

Haavisto said he was particularly worried about a kind of Russian “tourist route” through Helsinki airport which has been used by thousands of Russians before Moscow’s Feb. 24 attack on Ukraine.

On top of its visa decision, the Finnish Foreign Ministry said the government is currently exploring the possibility of helping Russian human rights defenders, civil society members, and journalists critical of the Kremlin by establishing a new kind of humanitarian visa enabling them to access the Nordic country.

At this week’s Prague meeting, EU foreign ministers decided to tighten travel rules for Russians within the 27-member bloc but found no consensus to issue a full-scale tourist visa ban, something that has been urged by Poland and the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Finland shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border with Russia and the country has regularly ranked among one of the most popular Western travel destinations or stopovers for Russian tourists.