Travelers Suffer as US-Russia Relations Worsen

The relationship between the U.S. and Russia isn't getting any better.

The two countries are introducing de facto travel restrictions for each other's citizens, a move Bloomberg described as “choking off the friendliest, most human channel of communication between” the two countries.

“It's the biggest step back into the Cold War era that the two governments have taken yet,” wrote Leonid Bershidsky, a Bloomberg View columnist.

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The Bloomberg article comes on the heels of the State Department announcing it will no longer issue visas in Yekaterinburg, Vladivostok and St. Petersburg, Russia. The State Department’s decision to eliminate these visa processing centers was a response to Russia ordering substantial cuts to the U.S. diplomatic mission in the country.

Closure of the three visa processing centers is no small move. In 2016, Yekaterinburg, Vladivostok and St. Petersburg issued 46,243 visas combined, which is about a third of the turnover of the U.S. embassy in Moscow, now the only visa-issuing office remaining in the entire country, according to Bloomberg.

In other words, elimination of the three visa posts effectively ends all non-essential travel to the U.S. from rural Russian areas, as well as from St. Petersburg, the country’s second largest city. Most travelers will likely opt to visit somewhere other than the U.S., rather than travel to the capital for a consular interview.

READ MORE: US Slashes Visa Services in Russia

The changes on Russian soil aren’t the only recent measures taken by the U.S. In a further retaliatory move, the U.S. ordered Russia to close its San Francisco consulate. The closure will likely mean an end to all non-essential travel to Russia for people living on the West Coast.

The escalating tit-for-tat also included the U.S. asking Russia to scale back its diplomatic presence in Washington and New York, according to Time.com. Russian was given just 48-hours to close the San Francisco consulate.

“The United States is prepared to take further action as necessary and as warranted," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. Still, she added that the U.S. hoped both countries could now move toward "improved relations" and "increased cooperation."

With relations between the countries unraveling, Bloomberg suggested limiting ordinary citizens from travel will only heighten mutual misunderstandings about each other and distortions of reality.

“It's just plain good sense to see that keeping casual travelers out of a country prevents people from forming an unmediated opinion of it. Stopping Russians who want to see the U.S. from doing it leaves them at the mercy of the Kremlin propaganda machine, which will be happy to tell them its own stories of life in the U.S.,” wrote Bershidsky.

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