Ukrainian Ambassador believes Finland will deport Russians who entered the country with passports issued in Crimea
Two residents with international passports issued by annexed Crimea received Finnish tourist visas and were allowed to enter the country because human error, Radio Liberty reports, citing a statement from the Ukrainian Ambassador to Finland, Andriy Olefirov.
“It seems to me that these residents were allowed to travel to Finland on a tourist visa because of human error. Up to a million Schengen visas are issued at the consulates in St. Petersburg every year. Of course, there’s no law that restricts issuing visas to such persons. It’s just the goodwill of the state members of the European Union in response to Ukraine’s appeal,” said the ambassador.
Olefirov added that the Migration Service, which checks the foreigners’ documents inside the country, is the first point of contact in such matters and not the consulate.
On July 27, Russian media reported that two Russian citizens, married couple Natalia Kushnarenko and Mikhail Berezhnoy could be deported from Finland to Ukraine for having Russian passports issued in the Crimea.
The family arrived in Finland in September 2017 on tourist visas that were received at the Consulate General of Finland in St. Petersburg. After arrival, they registered a company and submitted documents for a residence permit. In the end, Finnish authorities informed the couple that they don’t recognize passports issued by the Crimean government.
Spokeswoman of the Russian Embassy Natalia Vezhlivtseva stated that the embassy is closely monitoring the situation. Natalia Kushnarenko refuses to give any comment until the deportation problem is resolved.