A total of 1,379 million Russian citizens have entered the European Union through its land borders since the start of the war in Ukraine.
According to the latest data from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex, around 1.341 million Russian citizens have returned to their country through land borders with the EU, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
“As in the previous week, the majority of Russian travelers hold residence permits or visas for EU member states or Schengen-associated countries, while others have dual nationality,” read the statement.
As Frontex explains, the partial mobilization of Russia has so far led to an increase in border crossings by Russian citizens, mainly to visa-free countries and other easily accessible countries, including Georgia, Turkey, Kazakhstan , Uzbekistan and Mongolia.
Frontex also revealed that the number of entries into the EU of Russian nationals was mainly of men of service age, aged between 18 and 65. In addition, the same pointed out that this number is expected to drop further as the EU maintains stricter measures in visa policy, while the Russian authorities have set up recruitment offices near border crossing points.
Frontex data also shows that in the past week, October 3-9, around 25,600 Russian citizens entered the EU, half the number from a week ago.
In this regard, Frontex said that most Russians enter the EU through border crossing points in Estonia and Finland.
Since September 28, the agency revealed that more than 1,303,000 Russian citizens have entered the EU. At the same time, more than 1,273,000 Russian citizens returned to Russia through land borders with the EU.
According to Frontex, from September 19 to 25, almost 66,000 Russian citizens entered the EU, more than 30% compared to the previous week. Most of them arrived in Finland and Estonia. During this period, Finland recorded a total of 30,000 entries made by Russians.
Additionally, Frontex claimed that most Russians who have entered the EU have residence permits or visas for EU member states and some others have dual nationality.
In addition, it has recently been observed that EU Member States are also reporting the arrival of Ukrainian citizens in need of temporary protection as they flee the occupied eastern region of Ukraine via Russia.
Thus, EU countries neighboring Russia – Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland have already imposed restrictions on Russian citizens, and on September 19, these countries imposed an entry ban on citizens Russians saying that they would no longer issue Schengen visas to them.
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