RUSSIAN TOURISM TARGETED

The leaders of Estonia and Finland want fellow European countries to stop issuing tourist visas to Russian citizens, saying they should not be able to take vacations in Europe while the government of Russia carries out a war in Ukraine. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas wrote Tuesday on Twitter that “visiting Europe is a privilege, not a human right” and that it is “time to end tourism from Russia now.” A day earlier, her counterpart in Finland, Sanna Marin, told Finnish broadcaster YLE that “it is not right that while Russia is waging an aggressive, brutal war of aggression in Europe, Russians can live a normal life, travel in Europe, be tourists.” Estonia and Finland both border Russia and are members of the European Union, which banned air travel from Russia after it invaded Ukraine.

But Russians can still travel by land to both countries and apparently are then taking flights to other European destinations. YLE reported last week that Russian companies have started offering car trips from St. Petersburg to the airport of Helsinki, the Finnish capital, which has direct connections to Europe. Russia's second-largest city is about 300 kilometres from Helsinki.