The Russian foreign Ministry to the us diplomats: do not enter the Russians astray

The Russian foreign ministry called the state department, who explained the suspension of the issuance of nonimmigrant visas to the reduced number of employees in russia, "Not to enter the public astray," reports RIA Novosti. Earlier, the state department said that the issuance of nonimmigrant visas on the territory of Russia will be suspended from 23 august to 1 september. Then visa can be obtained only in Moscow. In addition, the embassy will not return the visa fees for the Russians applying for a visa. According to the Russian foreign ministry, the reduction of U.S. Diplomats to 455 people can not affect the efficiency of the diplomatic missions – these actions are intended to cause discontent of citizens of the Russian Federation. The foreign ministry cited data on the number of visas issued by other countries: for example, "Sixteen consular officials of the italian embassy last year received 478 thousand requests for a visa from the Russians; five of their spanish colleagues for the same term issued to citizens of Russia 877 thousand visas, while the much larger state of the us consulates – only about 186 thousand. ""The facts speak for themselves", – concluded the minister. While in Moscow said that may be accepted response, but no one is going to take it out on ordinary americans. If anyone was hoping that in this case, a bad example is contagious, he miscalculated, said the minister of foreign affairs sergey Lavrov. According to experts, any serious consequences for Russian-american relations, in addition to the inconvenience to ordinary citizens, not expected.

What Lavrov said, suggests that, indeed, probably, we will not take 'mirror' measures, in other words, to reduce the consular activities for visas, said the head of chair of Moscow state university andrei sidorov.