So Russians go on vacation in France, Italy, Spain and Greece while Poland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, the Baltic states, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, as well as non-EU countries Norway and Iceland complain.
Poland, Finland and the Baltics are clear, but why are the nordic countries so invested in the war?
Edit: Or is this cheap corruption and the Nordics try to distort the vacation market in their favour?
Sweden and us Swedes are very pro Ukraine and against Russia. Even tho we have not been in a war in over 200 years, Russia is considered the biggest enemy of Sweden still.
I do not consider this a play for tourists.
This logic aligns with how the Nordics contribute towards the defence of Ukraine, from Denmark’s massive packages in the begining, to Swedens recent gift of 16 Saab JAS gripens
Why? Tourism brings money, taking money away from Russia and bring it to Europe who in turn use it to support Ukraine seems like a win for me.
I’m 100% in favor of blocking money flowing the wrong way, for example by preventing banks from making such transactions or increasing taxes to certain things (e.g. here in Spain property taxes are much higher if you live abroad, increasing them further for Russians would prevent money from being drained that way). But if Russians wish to indirectly support Ukraine I see it as a win.
Possibly intelligence and propaganda reasons. Russians have been linked to alt-right propaganda campaigns and the last thing the secret services want is for those efforts to integrate further into their country’s society. A vacation visa also implies that the Russians will go back and the same security agencies would be all kinds of paranoid about what happens in the meantime
Why is the EU letting in Russians anyway? I don’t get it. Unless they are refugees and fleeing conscription, why are they being let in? It seems like a big risk.
Shoulda blocked their orc asses from EU long ago. We dont want those backwards pieces of shit. Go home and fix your country, stop it murdering Ukrainians then we can consider letting em back.
Because every € paid by tourists in the EU is a loss for Russia, everyone coming to live in the EU instead is a loss of workpower (and brain) for Russia.
Russia will not win the war in Ukraine based on spying out movements in the EU. Ukraine will not win this war because of military superiority.
There’s exactly one reason why Russia will lose and it’s purely economic. Seriously… Putin would love to close the borders and let no one out anymore if that wouldn’t bring a whole new set of problems. Why help him?
There are people who are “unlucky to be born russian”, who still would like to see friends and family. Why make life worse for normies while rich fucks just circumvent any bans with golden passports?
Maybe, so they can realise that their government is fighting an illegal war and is killing other normies everyday. And they, as the people of the country, should do something against it instead of traveling the world.
I don’t think it’s risky in itself. If they were serious about anything, they’d put pressure on Putin through all the bourgeoisie.
It’s got to be about business/economic interests related to tourism.
