The non-immigrant visas are temporarily unavailable for Russians, the US Embassy in Moscow suspends their issuing for a while.
The eight day – that is the period, during which the US Embassy in Russia will stop the issuing of certain kind of visas at its consulates elsewhere in Russia. In particular, the Russians will not be able to receive the non-immigrant visas (NIV) for eight days from Wednesday. Such measure is a response to Kremlin decision to cap US Embassy staff.
This decision smashes the plans of hundreds of thousands of tourists from Russian Federation to visit the United States. A couple of weeks ago, Kremlin ordered a cap on the number of US diplomatic personnel in Russia, so, the pause in the NIV issuing is a logical consequence of consulates’ staff shortage.
The US Embassy about resuming the visas issuing
The US Embassy in Moscow would resume issuing visas on September 1, but Russian tourists will not be able to apply for NIV in St Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok.
The cutting US Embassy and consulate staff in Russia by 755 wasn’t the good news for the US diplomatic corps. That Kremlin decision increased the tensions between Washington and Moscow, but Sergey Lavrov told a news conference that Russia “is not going to take it out on US citizens”.
