German embassy to Russia issued 40,000 visas in 2023, with half of those being short-term Schengen visas.
According to a statement that the German Embassy in Russia made on Telegram, the other half of visas issued to Russian citizens in 2023 were long-term stay Schengen visas, SchengenVisaInfo reports.
Last year, the visa department of the embassy in Moscow issued about 40,000 visas to Russian citizens, about 20,000 Schengen visas and another 20,000 national long-term visas, first and foremost for specialists.
The number of long-stay visas is especially higher for specialist visas issued, with Germany being one of the top issuing countries in the EU for Russian nationals seeking specialist visas.
Russian citizens can apply for German visas at VisaMetric visa centres in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and Kaliningrad.
Over 600,000 Schengen Visas Were Issued to Russians in 2022
Data from Schengen Statistics shows that a total of 603,955 out of 687,239 visa applications were approved by Schengen member states in 2022. This means that 87.8 per cent of all visa applications filed have received a positive response.
The country that issued the most Schengen visas to Russians was Spain – with 154,450 out of 166,893 visas issued.
The second and third countries that granted the highest number of short-term visas to Russians included Finland and Italy with 405,323 and 103,099 visas issued, respectively. In terms of visa issuance, around 93.4 and 87.9 per cent of applications in these two countries were approved.
Germany Is Issuing Fewer Visas to Russians Thanks to EU Sanctions
However, the number of visas issued, proportionally to the number of visa applications from Russians, has not been as high as it was in the previous years. The COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have impacted Russians’ application rates in the last three years.
In 2020 and 2021, the world shut down due to travel restrictions introduced in order to protect the public health. During this period, the number of visa applications fell significantly. In 2022, travel restrictions were lifted and travel was recovering from a two-year break.
However, this was not the case with Russian nationals, who, due to EU sanctions following the military invasion of Ukraine, were shunned by the European countries. In 2022 and 2023, many European countries decided to put a halt on Russian visa applicants, and some countries even closed their borders entirely.
