Two US Consulates may close in Russia: what is known - ForumDaily
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Two US Consulates may close in Russia: what is known

On December 14, the media reported that the United States intends to close two US consulates general in Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok (Russia). If in Vladivostok the consulate has practically not worked since the beginning of quarantine, then in Yekaterinburg it is one of the most active diplomatic missions in the territory of the post-Soviet space. The publication told more about the closure with the BBC.

Photo: Shutterstock

The media considered the early departure of Consul General Amy Storrow on Christmas leave as a kind of confirmation of the closure of consulates.

The pandemic hit hard all diplomatic missions, including in the Urals: due to restrictive measures, Consul General Storrow and her colleagues worked remotely, and rare events were conducted online.

Press Secretary of Russian President Vladimir Putin Dmitry Peskov commented on the possible closure of consulates, saying that if this happens, "it will not in any way affect Russian-American relations."

Peskov also explained that “the main function of consulates is to provide consular and visa services. These services have not been provided for a long time in these American foreign establishments on our territory.”

As of December 14 in Yekaterinburg, emergency telephones for American and Russian citizens were working as usual, a diplomatic official said: "We always provide assistance in emergency situations to US citizens."

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And it is still possible to obtain a non-immigrant - student or tourist - visa in Yekaterinburg, although the list of situations when it can be given has become small since the beginning of the pandemic.

“We issue nonimmigrant visas only in emergency cases where the applicant’s travel is for humanitarian purposes, the funeral of close relatives in the United States, or emergency medical treatment,” the US Consulate General said. “We issue visas to students traveling to continue their studies, as well as members of flight and ship crews.”

In 2019, the US consulates in Yekaterinburg, Vladivostok, St. Petersburg and Moscow issued more than 250 nonimmigrant visas.

The US Embassy in Moscow said that “in March, due to the pandemic, the diplomatic mission in Russia decided to suspend the work of the consulate general in Vladivostok and reduce the work of the consulate general in Yekaterinburg and the embassy in Moscow. Since then, we have continued to observe and assess the situation. "

“Unfortunately, we have no official information; “We will wait for developments,” the Russian Foreign Ministry representative office in Yekaterinburg said. “Everything here will be explained by the pandemic, without politics.”

A similar situation happened with the consulates general of Bulgaria and France. In the 2000s, they were already closed and were reopened.

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This is not the first time the Consulate General in Yekaterinburg has been targeted by the media. In 2015, the institution found itself at the center of a scandal on the eve of the presentation of the photo exhibition "Triumph and Tragedy: Allies in World War II," timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the victory of the anti-Hitler coalition countries.

On the eve of the opening of the exhibition, the exhibition was canceled "for technical reasons."

“The US Consulate in Yekaterinburg has provided consular services to American and Russian citizens in the Urals and Western Siberia since 1994,” the department’s website says. “Consular activities include issuing U.S. passports, consular birth certificates for foreign-born U.S. citizens, and nonimmigrant visas.”

The Consulate General serves 11 regions: 6 federal subjects included in the Ural Federal District, two regions of the “historical Urals” - the Orenburg region and the Perm region, as well as the neighboring republics of Bashkortostan and Udmurtia, the Omsk region.

Almost 11 million people live in these 25 regions.

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