This is not revenge

One of the most discussed topics of the past week was the US decision to limit the issuance of tourist and business visas to the Russians. De Jure did not talk about the prohibition, but the American side decided to stop considering documents in any country's Secondary Security Council in the Russian Federation. The exception was Moscow. Only a few days after such a decision was made, the US Ambassador to Russia John Tefft explained the logic of his leadership.

“It is bitter that some Russian commentators give what is happening as a cynical attempt on our part to punish Russians in response to a demand to reduce the number of our staff. Our staff was reduced to such an extent that we have to redistribute our personnel resources to solve a number of problems, and the issuance of visas is one of them, ”the ambassador said in a video message published on Twitter .

In Russia, Tefft’s statement was perceived without enthusiasm, considering that he was simply trying to call things not his own proper. This was, for example, said the chairman of the Commission of the Federation Council on Information Policy Alexei Pushkov.

“Speaking About visas, the Ambassador TEFT tried to save the remnants of the US image among Russian citizens: “This is not revenge!” Revenge or not, but a new barrier has been created. His predecessor McFol immediately said: in response, the United States will issue less visas. Another near attempt to “punish” Russia. In the spirit of Obama, ”he wrote on his Twitter .

A colleague for the Council, First Deputy Chairman of the Committee on International Affairs, Vladimir Dzhabarov, agreed with him, who also considered Tefft's words an attempt to justify himself.

“We have a stream of tourists in the United States not so huge that they do not have enough employees to serve it. This is not a popular resort, such as, for example, Greece in the summer season. There is statistics that shows this. I do not think that they could immediately stop cope with the flow of requests. So, most likely, Tefft is trying to justify what they did. But this is a very clumsy attempt. I believe that this is not the case, ”the senator emphasized in a conversation with Russian .

Many Russian experts are convinced that the American side deliberately with such steps exacerbates relations between the two countries. And even they say that something similar could be observed in the middle of the last century.

“As part of the request for aggressiveness, this step with visas followed, which became a step in the sides of the full -scale and significant“ diplomatic war ”. The Americans are ready to start a further escalation through the diplomatic departments, and it is increasingly reminiscent of the return to the time of the Cold War, ”FBA said“ Economics Today ” Chief Researcher of the Institute of the USA and Canada Vladimir Vasiliev.

However, there is another position. Quite stringent rules for issuing non -immigrant visas for entry into the United States explain why so many employees are required. In addition, the Americans, in contrast, for example, from the Schengen countries, do not give the paperwork to collect documents for visas accredited operators, doing everything on their own.

“There is a restructuring of the work of the embassy. Since a certain number of diplomats will have to leave, they are now doing regrouping. They themselves are the creators of all this disgrace: in addition to the procedures with prints, they conduct individual interviews with each, even if a person with regalia or drove 100 times. They themselves arranged this matter, and now this order must be adjusted. This is a temporary phenomenon, they cannot postpone this business for a long time, ”said Yuri Rogulev , director of the Roosevelt Study Fund at Moscow State University.

Recall that from August 23, a procedure for issuing non -immigrant visas has been suspended in Russia. She will be resumed only from September 1, but now only in Moscow. The scheduled interviews are transferred, and there is no data on when they work visa departments in consulates in the cities of Russia. In the United States, this was explained by the fact that the diplomats did not have enough hands after the Government of the Russian Federation in response to a new package of sanctions adopted by the US Congress equalized the number of American diplomatic mission in Russia with the Russian diplomatic mission in America. Now 455 employees work on both sides.