Cyprus Resumes Visa Processing in Russia

Cyprus has resumed visa processing at its third-party centers across Russia, nearly a month after a contract expiration forced the country's consulates to temporarily take over. The service, operated by private company BLS International, resumed on Monday. It had been suspended on June 13 following the end of the company's previous agreement, which led the Embassy's consular section in Moscow, along with consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Krasnodar, to handle all applications directly. BLS International runs visa application centers in eight Russian cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don and Novosibirsk. On its website, BLS International confirmed it has resumed operations in Russia. Cyprus is a European Union member. The EU suspended its visa facilitation agreement with Russia in 2022 and last November stopped issuing multi-entry visas to Russian citizens. These collective measures have drastically reduced travel, cutting the number of EU visas issued to Russians from several million per year to hundreds of thousands. Last month, a group of European countries urged the EU to adopt "new restrictive and binding visa measures" for Russians wanting to visit Schengen area. Russian opposition figure Yulia Navalnaya spoke against the proposal in September, warning that broad bans would be a "serious mistake" by reinforcing the Kremlin's narrative that Europe is hostile to all Russians.