Russians are increasingly returning to Europe for holidays, even as the EU has some of the world’s toughest sanctions against Moscow over the war in Ukraine.
Confidential figures, seen by Euractiv and circulated among national governments, show that Schengen visa issuance to Russian nationals rose in 2025, exposing a gap between Europe’s political rhetoric on isolating the Kremlin and the continued appetite for Russian tourism across parts of the bloc.
The data also broadly reflects a geographic divide between countries far from Europe’s eastern flank – France, Italy and Spain – that feel less threatened by Russia and have long welcomed investment from there, and nations such as Poland and the Baltic states that view the war as an existential struggle.
According to the figures, Russian nationals submitted more than 670,000 Schengen visa applications in 2025, a nearly 8% increase from 2024. EU countries issued more than 620,000 visas, up 10.2%.
More than 477,000 tourist visas were granted to Russian nationals, accounting for roughly 77% of all visas issued in 2025. Visits to family and friends represented the second-largest category, followed by business travel.
France, Italy, and Spain accounted for nearly three-quarters of all visa applications submitted by Russian nationals. Paris has not only issued the highest number of visas but also seen the sharpest rise in granting Russian citizens free passes, with a jump of more than 23% in 2025 compared to 2024.
France has more than 56,000 Russians living there, according to 2019 official data, with a substantial number of them living in the south-east Riviera.
The region, where Russians have long developed ties and bought property between the rich shores of Antibes and Monaco, is also where local authorities have frozen more than 50 properties linked to entities and individuals sanctioned in relation to the war in Ukraine.
Visa issuance to Russian nationals has also taken on a political dimension in Italy, amid the recent controversy surrounding the Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
Reports of internal correspondence have shown that organisations have sought to navigate EU sanctions through indirect participation models to invite Russian artists. The episode has drawn scrutiny from Brussels, which has since decided to revoke funds to the Biennale.
Italian, French and Spanish authorities did not respond to Euractiv’s request for comment.
The Commission told Euractiv that national governments were advised in 2022 to deprioritise visa applications from Russians and, in some cases, refrain from issuing visas altogether. The EU also fully suspended its visa facilitation agreement with Moscow after the large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In 2025, new rules ended multiple-entry visas for Russian nationals, requiring a new visa application for each EU trip to allow closer and more frequent security checks.
The Commission maintains that, as a result, Schengen visas issued to Russian nationals “went down significantly, compared to before Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”.
Awkward tensions
At the centre of the row is the little-known ‘Schengen Barometer’, an internal Commission monitoring tool circulated among EU countries to track Europe’s border-free area.
The document also contains figures of how many Schengen visas EU countries are issuing to Russian nationals while Moscow continues its war against Ukraine.
In 2025, the numbers led to tensions among EU capitals and reopened divisions over the bloc’s Russia policy more than three years after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to several diplomats and officials familiar with the discussions, some capitals objected strongly when data on Russian visa issuance appeared in the barometer.
France was particularly uneasy about the figures appearing in the document, three diplomats said.
Baltic and Nordic countries have long argued that Russians should not be able to enjoy leisure travel in Europe while Moscow continues its war against Ukraine.
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The disagreement became visible earlier this year when diplomats noticed that Russian visa data had disappeared entirely from a newer edition of the statistics.
Several diplomats told Euractiv they were surprised that one of the document’s most politically sensitive sections had simply been removed, and pointed it out during the discussions.
EU officials told Euractiv that several capitals – notably Paris – pushed back over the politically sensitive issue of issuing visas to Russians. Some also argued the row reflects a wider strategic dilemma, whether isolating Russians from the outside world could ultimately backfire by cutting them off from exposure to life beyond the Kremlin’s grip.
After suspending the data, the figures were returned this month in a separate technical document circulated alongside the original barometer, three diplomats said, after eight EU countries raised the issue.
The Commission declined to say whether national governments had exerted any pressure on the issue, but confirmed it provided EU countries with an updated overview of visas issued to Russian nationals in April this year.
The EU is also debating banning Russian nationals with combat experience in Ukraine, with an initiative expected to be presented before June.
Miriam Sáenz de Tejada contributed to this report.
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Source:
www.euractiv.com