U.S. scales back visa services in Russia

Cites Moscow’s move to expel embassy staff; Lavrov calls it a political move

The United States began to sharply scale back its visa services in Russia on Monday, drawing an angry reaction from Moscow, three weeks after President Vladimir Putin ordered Washington to more than halve its embassy and consular staff.

The move, which will hit business travellers, tourists and students, was the latest in a series of bilateral measures that have driven relations to a new post-Cold War low, thwarting hopes on both sides that they might improve after President Donald Trump took office in January.

The U.S. embassy said it was suspending all non-immigrant visa operations across Russia on Wednesday and that when they resumed, on Sept. 1, they would be offered “on a greatly reduced scale”.

Beginning on Monday, it would be cancelling an unspecified number of appointments and asking applicants to reschedule, it said in a statement. “Capacity for interviews in the future will be greatly reduced because we have had to greatly reduce our staffing levels to comply with the Russian government’s requirement,” the embassy told applicants on its website.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the U.S. demarche looked like an attempt to provoke ill-feeling among ordinary Russians against the authorities.

“The American authors of these decisions have come up with another attempt to stir up discontent among Russian citizens about the actions of the Russian authorities,” Mr. Lavrov told reporters. “It’s a well known logic... and this is the logic of those who organise colour revolutions.”

Mr. Lavrov said the U.S. visa move had a “political overtone” and that Moscow would consider how best to respond.

The U.S. step means that Russian citizens wanting to visit the United States for business, tourism or educational reasons will no longer be able to apply via U.S. consulates outside Moscow and will have to travel to the Russian capital instead.

The U.S. embassy signalled its new scaled-back visa regime could be in place for some time. “We will operate at reduced capacity for as long as our staffing levels are reduced,” it said.