The US is suspending processing and issuance of non-immigrant visas in Russia from this August 23 and will resume it on a much reduced scale a week later, in a fallout of tit-for-tat sanctions.
The US embassy in Moscow on August 21 blamed the planned changes on the Russian government’s move to force US diplomatic missions in the country to cut staff by almost two-thirds. Moscow’s decision, announced on July 28, was a political response to a new law codifying existing anti-Russian sanctions and adding new restrictions, but it was designed to mirror restrictions slapped on Russia’s diplomatic missions in the US in late December by the Obama administration as a punishment for Moscow’s alleged meddling in the US election.
