Russia warns of retaliation if its citizens are denied access to Schengen area

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has warned that Russia will take retaliatory measures in case Russian citizens are deprived of access to the Schengen area, an area made up of 26 European countries that have eliminated their border controls.

Questioned about this possible measure by Europe, Peskov has pointed out that Moscow does not rule out “any action” in response, while advancing that if steps are finally taken in this direction, the consequences would be “very bad.”

“Still, I would like to hope for the best, at least that a small part of the sober thinking of our opponents will be preserved,” Peskov said, who equated this hypothetical measure to limiting transit to the Kaliningrad exclave, Interfax reported.

But beyond these possible decisions, the Kremlin spokesman regretted that both the countries of the European Union and the United States and Canada are “literally competing” to see who adopts more “anti-Russian and hostile measures against Russia.”

Peskov thus believes that, at a point where the Western powers are already running out of new restrictions to impose, they are now engaged in “making more irrational and hard-to-explain decisions.”