By Amina Ismail
LUXEMBOURG, June 4 (Reuters) – Sweden’s migration minister urged the European Commission on Thursday to tighten rules on tourist visas for Russians, saying it was “insane” that many Russians are enjoying European holidays while Ukrainians are dying on the battlefield.
Sweden and 10 other countries sent a letter on Wednesday to European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and migration commissioner Magnus Brunner saying the number of tourist visas issued to Russians had risen despite Russia’s war in Ukraine.
They urged the Commission, the EU executive body, to urgently tighten and harmonise restrictions, and said uneven rules risked undermining security and sanctions policy on Russia over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian government did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Russian officials say European countries are gripped by anti-Russian hysteria and accuse them of being openly racist against Russians.
Russians who have what is known as a Schengen visa can travel freely in the so-called Schengen area, a group of 25 EU member states and four other countries.
According to data cited in Wednesday’s letter, which was seen by Reuters, 477,878 Schengen visas were issued to Russian citizens for tourism in 2025, up from 440,558 in 2024.
“I think it’s insane, frankly speaking, that we are seeing hundreds of thousands of Russian tourists coming to Europe, enjoying sunshine,” Swedish Migration Minister Johan Forssell told Reuters while attending an EU justice and home affairs meeting in Luxembourg.
“They are having weekend shopping trips, drinking rosé wine, while at the same time Ukrainians are dying on the battlefield.”
Moscow and Kyiv deny targeting civilians, but there have been many civilian casualties as Russian airstrikes pound Ukraine and Ukrainian drone strikes reach increasingly deep into Russia.
The letter to Kallas and Brunner was signed by ministers from Sweden, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Poland.
(Reporting by Amina Ismail, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
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