Oslo: Norway said that it will be closing its borders to Russian tourists on Thursday. From May 29, most Russian tourists won’t be able to enter Norway, which shares a 198-kilometre border with Russia in its far north, the Norwegian government said in a statement.
“The decision to tighten the entry rules is in line with the Norwegian approach of standing by allies and partners in the reactions against Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine,” Minister of Justice and Public Security, Emilie Enger Mehl, said in the statement. Norway, which is a NATO member but not an EU member stopped issuing tourist visas to Russians in the Spring of 2022 after Moscow invaded Ukraine.
Beginning on May 29, individuals with previously issued long-term visas or those with visas from other Schengen member nations may still enter through the Storskog-Boris Gleb border crossing, which is the only one between the neighbours. However, there will be exceptions for individuals travelling to see close relatives who live in Norway as well as for jobs and school.
Since the start of the year, 5,102 people with tourist visas have crossed the border from Russia, according to police. Norway, although not a member of the European Union (EU), Norway works closely with the bloc, which had already adopted similar measures toward Russians in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The majority of European nations are part of the borderless Schengen area, which permits unrestricted travel inside its boundaries. An AFP request for comment has not received a response from Russia’s embassy in Oslo. 15 Russian Embassy staff members were expelled by Norway in April 2023 after it determined that they were “intelligence officers”.
Norway’s domestic intelligence service PST said last week that it expected “that Russia will try to compensate for the loss of intelligence officers.” “They may do this for example by sending more travelling agents,” Beate Gangas, head of PST, told a foreign press briefing. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia did not intend to bar entry to Norwegian citizens. “But this does not mean that retaliatory measures won’t be taken. They will be,” she told reporters.
