Ukrainian president calls on West to ban all Russian travelers

The way to stop Russia from annexing any more of Ukraine’s territory, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday, is for Western countries to announce that they would ban all Russian citizens in response.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post, Zelensky said that “the most important sanctions are to close the borders — because the Russians are taking away someone else’s land.” He said Russians should “live in their own world until they change their philosophy,” The Washington Post reported on August 8. 

Russian leaders have signalled they could hold annexation votes in the occupied parts of Ukraine’s east and south — in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions — on September 11, alongside regional elections already scheduled to take place. Russian officials say those votes would legitimize Russia’s claim to those areas, but critics say the votes would be a Russian-manipulated farce.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and senior White House officials have warned that any attempted land grab through “sham” referendums would bring “additional costs imposed upon Russia.”

It is unclear what those consequences would be. Much as they did before Russia invaded on Feb. 24, Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials are pushing their Western partners to announce sanctions as a deterrent. Zelensky told The Post on Monday that the sanctions already imposed on Russia for its unprovoked war in Ukraine are “weak” compared with closing borders to Russian citizens for one year and a full embargo on the purchase of Russian energy.

Russian airlines have been banned from flying over most of Europe and North America, which has made it more challenging for Russians to travel abroad. But there is no blanket ban in place such as Zelensky is suggesting; Russian citizens are still free to apply for a visa to visit the United States, for example.