Photo: Mikhail Pochuev/TASS

Russian politicians, who have been banned from entering Western countries, have continued to restrict the ability of civil servants and ordinary citizens to leave the country over the past year. “Categories not allowed to travel abroad” appeared.

The tourist flow within Russia in 2015 increased by 20%, said the head of Rostourism Oleg Safonov in November. According to him, approximately 30% fewer Russians began to travel abroad than a year earlier. Due to the devaluation of the ruble and improved infrastructure in resort towns, “it has become more profitable and comfortable to travel within the country,” Safonov explained. However, over the past year, leaving the country has become impossible for many citizens due to new restrictions from the state.

Unavailable countries

Most Russian citizens have only internal passports. Until 2015, these documents gave the right to travel from the country to neighboring Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. From March 1, Russian citizens with internal passports were no longer allowed into the territory of Ukraine; entry became possible only upon presentation of a foreign passport.

In turn, Ukraine banned all men with Russian citizenship aged 16 to 60 from entering the country. Passage of this category of persons is possible only by decision of the head of the border detachment after control and only in emergency cases. In addition, since October 25, Russia has stopped air traffic with Ukraine, prohibiting domestic airlines from direct and transit flights there. Ukraine previously announced similar measures.

The FMS could not provide data on the exact number of foreign passports issued to Russians. However, the department’s press service reported that over the past nine years, FMS employees have issued 32 million new-generation foreign passports and they have almost completely replaced the old-style documents. Thus, a little more than 20% of citizens have the right to travel outside a limited part of the post-Soviet space.

But for them, in 2015, the most popular resorts in Turkey and Egypt became inaccessible. These countries accounted for 57% of Russian “organized tourists,” said Dmitry Gorin, vice-president of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia. According to him, the annual tourist flow from Russia is 10 million tourists, 5.7 million of whom preferred to vacation in Egypt and Turkey.

President Vladimir Putin introduced a ban on charter flights to Turkey on November 28, four days after a Turkish fighter shot down a Russian Su-24 participating in a military operation in Syria.

All flights to Egypt are prohibited. Such measures were taken after the terrorist attack in the skies over the Sinai Peninsula, when 224 people were killed due to a bomb explosion on board the airliner of the Russian airline Kogalymavia.

Security forces restricted from traveling

In February 2015, it became known that the Minister of Internal Affairs, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, had established a special procedure, according to which any travel of police officers abroad can only be carried out with the written permission of the head of the territorial department of internal affairs, the deputy minister or the minister himself. “This decision was discussed at a meeting of the Security Council. Of course, district police officers are not holders of state secrets, and at first glance this measure looks redundant. But we proceeded from the fact that the rules should be the same for all employees in this field of activity,” Putin explained during the direct line.

In the summer it became known that police officers can obtain permission to travel to one of 30 countries: Abkhazia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Brazil, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Cambodia, Cameroon, Kyrgyzstan, China , Cuba, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nicaragua, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, South Africa, South Ossetia.

Massive restrictions on travel for law enforcement officers were discussed last year. The heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB, the Federal Drug Control Service, the Federal Penitentiary Service, the Prosecutor General's Office and the Ministry of Defense sent recommendations not to travel to Western countries to their employees. Judges also received similar letters asking them to limit travel abroad.

Such recommendations in practice are expressed in the confiscation of international passports, which are now kept in safes by the immediate managers of various departments, RBC’s interlocutors in law enforcement agencies told.

According to published presidential decrees and official statistics, the total staffing level of law enforcement agencies after the reductions that took place this year is at least 2.5 million people.

Debts and sanctions

More than 1.4 million Russians were unable to travel abroad during the first nine months of 2015 due to overdue debts worth more than 10 thousand rubles, Artur Parfenchikov, head of the Federal Bailiff Service (FSSP), said at a press conference in October. “Bailiffs have intensified the use of compulsory collection measures against debtors,” he emphasized.

According to the FSSP, compared to the same period last year, the number of debtors unable to travel increased by 400 thousand.

The Russian elite, in turn, continues to face restrictions of a different kind. In 2015, the United States, Canada, Australia, European Union countries and others extended sanctions against about a hundred Russian citizens, who were also prohibited from entering the territories of these states.

The list of those banned from entering these countries includes officials from the presidential administration and Crimea, some rebel leaders in south-eastern Ukraine, heads of intelligence services, state-owned companies, chairmen and deputy chairmen of the State Duma and the Federation Council, ordinary deputies and senators. In addition, several businessmen who were part of Putin’s so-called inner circle ended up there.

Unfreedom for the disloyal

As last year, there remains a category of Russian opposition politicians and activists who cannot leave the country or do not want to return for fear of losing freedom of movement.

This year, another one, Leonid Volkov, joined several supporters of opposition leader Alexei Navalny who are not allowed to travel abroad. He is under recognizance not to leave the place in a criminal case initiated after the elections in the Kostroma region. Lifenews employees accuse him of obstructing the journalist’s work.

Besides Volkov, Nikolai Lyaskin and Konstantin Yankauskas cannot travel abroad. They are under recognizance in connection with the case of fraud in the 2013 mayoral elections. Navalny himself had previously been unable to leave Russia due to criminal prosecution, and this year the FMS refused to issue him a foreign passport.

They are still not issuing a foreign passport to the former head of the Menatep bank, Platon Lebedev, who was released after ten years in prison because of his debt to the state: he was ordered to return unpaid taxes totaling more than 17 billion rubles.

Right-wing radicals are restricted in their movements. Nationalist Dmitry Demushkin is under recognizance not to leave the country in the case of inciting hostility on social networks.

Suggestions for the future

In November, State Duma deputy Dmitry Nosov (LDPR) introduced a bill into parliament proposing to legislate the possibility of restricting the departure of employees of internal affairs bodies from the country. Amendments to the law “On the procedure for the departure of citizens” provide that the right of Russians to travel abroad may be temporarily limited if they are employees of internal affairs bodies or serve in state civil service in bodies in positions, the list of which is determined by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Now these amendments have been sent to the Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption.

In the spring, United Russia deputy and first deputy chairman of the Duma Defense Committee Andrei Krasov introduced a bill proposing to limit the right of conscription evaders to travel abroad, but did not find support from the government and the Defense Committee.

After the terrorist attacks in Paris, the Foreign Ministry was already exploring the possibility of banning Russian citizens from visiting EU countries, Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov told reporters. However, he emphasized that the ban is being introduced not by the Foreign Ministry, but by the president, and “there is no talk about this yet.”

The State Duma, in turn, for the first time started talking about the possibility of introducing exit visas for all Russians. Vadim Solovyov, deputy chairman of the committee on constitutional legislation, head of the legal service of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, spoke about similar proposals coming to deputies “from citizens”. According to him, there are ideas to oblige citizens to sign documents about familiarization with potential threats before traveling abroad.

Russia is restricted from traveling