President Zelensky urges the West to ban all Russian citizens from entering the country

Russian news agency TASS reported on August 9 that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky told the Washington Post that Western countries need to close their borders to all Russian citizens.

According to this leader, “the most important sanctions are to close the borders, because the Russians are occupying other people's land.” He affirmed that Russian citizens should “live in their own world until they change their philosophy of life.”

In Mr Zelensky's personal view, this should also include Russians who have left the country to protest against the government's actions. “Whatever kind of Russian (...) let's force them back to Russia,” he said.

According to TASS, the Ukrainian leader believes that the entire Russian population must be held responsible. Mr. Zelensky noted: “The people elected this government and they did not fight, did not argue, did not scold it.” The Ukrainian president also criticized the current sanctions as weak and ineffective.

Earlier, according to Russian news agencies, on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on television that, in response to a request from the leaders of the republics in Donbass, he had decided to launch a special military operation to protect the people “who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev government for eight years.” After that, the US and its allies announced a series of sanctions against Russia and increased arms transfers to Kiev.