The American Embassy in Ukraine offered citizens of the Russian Federation who do not have time to get a visa to the US in Moscow, apply for permission to enter the Consulate General in Kiev. To do this, the applicant needs to arrive in the Ukrainian capital, acquire any residence address (even a hotel is suitable), pay a visa fee in a Ukrainian bank and receive a document in the same consulate. A very simple procedure - it's much easier to go for a visa from Moscow to Kiev than to fly from Vladivostok to Moscow. Even after the cessation of a direct air service between Russia and Ukraine, the train between the two capitals goes the same night. There are no problems, so why do many in Moscow and Kiev call the appeal of American diplomats a mockery?.
Because this is a mockery and there is.
Only not American. The US Embassy simply fulfills the protocol duties - no more. Consulate General in Kiev - nearest to Moscow. Americans are not mocked, the Kremlin mocks. This entire story is a wonderful illustration of what the Russian government has done to its citizens and to its own country. Just a few years ago it was difficult to imagine that getting an American visa for a Russian would be such a problem that for permission to enter it would have to go to another country. A few years ago no one in Russia would have believed that a trip to Kiev - a city where Muscovites and St. Petersburg went for the weekend - would be perceived as a serious political test. And that not only Russians in Russia can now not admit, but also in Ukraine. And that in order to get to America, it will be necessary to first go to Ukraine, which is not so simple because of the lack of direct flights - well, it really looked like an anecdote. And now this is no longer an anecdote. Putin got it.
Let's just restore the chronology of events. President Barack Obama sends a group of saboteurs from the United States with diplomatic passports who participated in a special operation with interference in the American elections. Putin does not react. He is sure that everything "decides" with the new American president, Donald Trump, who publicly approved Russia's reluctance to respond to Obama's sanctions. Over time, Putin's confidence evaporates - but the resentment on Trump, which did not justify the Kremlin's hopes. And then the decision is made to reduce the composition of the American diplomatic mission in Moscow. The fact that the first victim of this reduction will be the consular service, in the Kremlin, few people are interested in. Moreover - there are very few people who understand this. For those like Putin, the embassy is primarily a reconnaissance and sabotage center, and they are right in their own way: any Russian embassy is really a reconnaissance and sabotage center, diplomacy and sabotage in the Russian political consciousness are merged together. But only Americans are issuing visas to thousands of Russians - and now the terms of issuing these visas are seriously biased.
And then the Americans remind that there is also an embassy in Kiev: welcome! Nothing unusual in this. The same Ukrainians put British visas in Warsaw, and not in Kiev. But Kiev for the Muscovite is by no means the same as Warsaw for the Kievite. Because the Kremlin not only interfered in the American elections. He even interfered with the very existence of Ukraine. The Russian will have to come to the city, where on the walls of the houses the memorial plaques to those killed in the war with his country. And this war is by no means over.
It is clear that in this situation Ukraine is visited by those who understand Russia's responsibility for this war. And they do not go for American visas. But it's not the Americans who are to blame for this!.
The Kremlin deprived the Americans of the opportunity to work with Russian applicants. And Americans just offer these applicants a logically convenient option. And they demonstrate - unwittingly - how much Russian power is hostile to any logistics and any logic.
Original.