(MENAFN) On Thursday, Russia denounced EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas following Brussels’ decision to terminate multi-entry Schengen visas for most Russian citizens, declaring that the bloc “feeds and waters millions of illegal migrants.”

Reacting to Kallas’s remark that traveling to the EU is “a privilege, not a right,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova stated on Telegram that the EU’s approach supports undocumented migrants instead of law-abiding Russian travelers.

“She was, of course, speaking about the millions of illegal migrants who are now being given preferential treatment by the European Union,” Zakharova commented, emphasizing that the matter was “not about legal tourists who paid for visas and went to see the Eiffel Tower and go shopping in Milan.” She mockingly referred to Kallas as “a person of rare intelligence.”

On Friday, the EU announced that it would refuse multi-entry visas for Russian nationals because of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

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