Germany Demands EU Cut Russian Tourist Visas as Sabotage Cases Mount
Berlin urged EU partners to curb Schengen tourist visas for Russians after the Leipzig suspect — a Belarusian with a Russian passport — entered on an Italian-issued visa without ever visiting Italy. Italy granted 165,000 visas to Russians last year, nearly triple 2021; Rome has ordered checks. German police count over 165 suspected sabotage cases this year — though investigators now suspect a climate extremist, not Russia, for this week’s substation attacks, and two Bulgarians were arrested over incendiary devices at a Munich defence firm.
The visa numbers explain the German fury better than the rhetoric: a Schengen system issuing Russians three times more Italian holiday visas than before the sabotage wave began is, functionally, the infiltration route Moscow’s services no longer need to build themselves. But the file’s honest complications deserve their place — the substation attacks that headlined this week’s escalation narrative may prove domestic extremism, and many prosecuted saboteurs turn out to be Telegram-recruited Ukrainians and Balts no visa policy would catch. That is the pattern of hybrid war: attribution arrives in fragments, some fragments dissolve, and policy must be made before the forensics finish. The August tally Berlin circulated — seven attacks on defence-linked targets across six countries in one month — survives the corrections. Watch Italy’s visa audit; three-quarters of Russian applications flow through Rome, Paris and Madrid, and one capital tightening forces the others’ hands.