Estonia’s Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu wants the EU to ban Russian tourists because he believes all Russians bear a “moral responsibility” for President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
“We are letting the citizens of an aggressor state peacefully visit the Louvre … and return to [their] homeland as if nothing has happened,” Reinsalu told Politico.
Last week, Estonia banned a type of short-stay visa for Russians, which revoked more than 50,000 visas. The ban came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the “whole population” of Russia was responsible for the war in Ukraine and Demanded that Western countries ban all Russian travelers.
But Zelensky and Estonia’s view is not shared across Europe. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said last week that Berlin would not support a ban on Russian travelers, arguing that the conflict in Ukraine is “not the war of Russian citizens.”
The US has also rejected Zelensky’s demand to ban Russian travelers. A State Department spokesperson told Reuters on Monday that the US has already banned the visas of high-level Russian officials and said they want to leave pathways to “dissidents” that want to leave Russia open.
The spokesperson also said that the US wants to “draw a line between the actions of the Russian government and its policies in Ukraine, and the people of Russia,” although ordinary citizens in Russia are the ones feeling the economic pain of the US-led Western sanctions campaign.
I suggest they do that. And since the EU have gone back to their fascist roots completely, why not parrot Kiev and deem Russians “subhumans” like the Kiev Nazi regime now openly does?
Their ambassador to Kazakhstan even said: “we kill as many Russians as we can so that our children don’t have to”.
And now EU want to militarize and more directly get involved in the US war against Russia. I think we can see where this is going….
Sure … and of course these guys also banned US and UK and Israel tourists, right? After all, you can’t let the citizens of aggressor nations off the hook and these three are by far the biggest serial aggressors in the world.
This is nothing less than opportunistic bigotry. If the conflict in Ukraine had not occurred, these bigots would find some other reason.
We have an ex-president, George W Bush, admitting our invasion of Iraq was illegal. We have another ex-government official, John Bolton, admitting that he was part of attempted coups, (not just one), on behalf of our government. If we were playing by the same rules, are you listening Blinken, we’d be sanctioned into economic misery, and we wouldn’t be able to ever step foot out of this country.
IHRA definition of antisemitism : Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.
Do we treat Jews differently then ?
I know Jews and Israeli citizens are somewhat different but the point remains
Holding all Jews “collectively responsible for the actions & crimes of Israel may be antisemitism. It seems to me though, that there are all too many Jewish Americans who condone Israeli “actions” as a package, with a “They do what they need to do” attitude. And after living in midtown Manhattan for 20 years with a majority of Jewish friends, business partners and associates, I think Jewish New Yorkers largely support Israeli policy. I have never thought of “all Jews “as anything but fellow people.” I do believe that the Jewish citizens of Israel by in large condone the crimes that their government commit against their Palestine charges. I use the word charges because I have not spent sufficient time to come to a conclusion on the citizenship status of the non-Jewish indigenous people under the new legislation on citizenship.