New Russian travel advice: Avoid the West

Published 12 December 2024 at 08.15

Foreign. The Russian government is now advising its citizens against traveling to the USA, Canada and several EU countries. According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zacharova, relations with the West have deteriorated to the point that Russian citizens risk being “hunted down” by American authorities.

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– Relations between Russia and the United States are now so confrontational that we urge citizens to refrain from traveling to these countries, especially in the coming weekends, Maria Zacharova said during a press conference on Wednesday.

She claimed that US authorities and security services are deliberately targeting Russian citizens, writes Reuters.

The announcement comes at a time of heightened tensions – both Russia and Western countries have accused each other of harassing diplomats and wrongly imprisoning each other's citizens.< /p>

The Kremlin also accuses the outgoing US administration under President Joe Biden of escalating the conflict ahead of Donald Trump's imminent return to the White House. Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Kremlin, warns that Biden's policies could increase the risk of a wider conflict.

Relations between Russia and the West have not been this bad since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, both Russian and American diplomats believe, according to Reuters.

Despite the tensions, Russia signals a certain openness to new prisoner exchanges between the two countries. Earlier this year, the largest exchange since the Cold War was carried out, something that could be repeated according to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.