Russia plans to reduce the number of types of visas for foreigners and at the same time provide for four new purposes of entry. This was announced by the head of the Main Directorate for Migration Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Valentina Kazakova at a meeting of the expert council under the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, where a bill on the conditions for the entry and stay of foreigners in the Russian Federation was discussed.
“New types of visas are being introduced, such as investor visas, special visas, ordinary medical and ordinary universal visas,” she said (quoted by TASS). Foreigners entering Russia for private business, humanitarian or tourist purposes will be able to count on obtaining an ordinary universal visa.
Kazakova recalled that today there are 30 visa options in Russia, but some of them will soon be reduced. At the same time, such visas as diplomatic, service, transit, unified electronic visa, ordinary study and ordinary work visas are preserved. The procedure for obtaining work visas is planned to be simplified. “It is proposed to issue a foreign citizen with an ordinary work visa for up to three months, with the subsequent extension of its validity, by issuing a multiple-entry visa, for the duration of the concluded employment contract, but not more than three years for each such extension,” she explained.
An ordinary work visa can also be issued by family members of a foreign citizen working in the Russian Federation. Now this preference applies only to family members of highly qualified specialists. In addition, the bill provides that a visa can be single, double or multiple. The minimum term is three months, the maximum is up to five years.
Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, who chaired the Security Council’s recently created interdepartmental commission on improving migration policy, warned last week of the risk of criminal “ethnic enclaves” emerging in Russia in places where migrants densely reside. In his opinion, the government should pay more attention to what is happening in such areas in order to prevent the growth of “extremist and terrorist sentiment.” In addition, Medvedev believes, it is necessary to make mandatory medical examination of foreigners entering Russia for a long time.
Earlier in February, the Ministry of Internal Affairs proposed changing the requirements for declaring foreigners undesirable in Russia. The draft order prepared by the department, in particular, provides for the abolition of temporary restrictions on making a decision on such an issue (now – no more than one month), and also proposes to take into account the presence of close relatives in Russia of a foreign citizen.