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With the summer vacation season still going strong in Europe, NBC News (among many outlets) has run travel features<\/a> highlighting \u201cthe most romantic beaches in Europe.\u201d There\u2019s nothing particularly unusual about that, but some of these tourism stories feature pictures of (and interviews with) tourists enjoying the scenic views. And quite a few of those tourists are Russians. This has left officials and citizens in Ukraine seeing red, wondering how people can be watching the horrors of the war in their country play out on the news and then flip the station and see Russian oligarchs soaking up the sun on a beach in Greece. With that in mind, they are calling on Europe to ban Russian tourism<\/a> until the Kremlin withdraws from Ukraine. But not all European countries are eager to give up those lucrative tourist dollars. (NBC)<\/p>\n Outraged and anguished after six months of war in Ukraine, Europe is wrestling over a question with deep diplomatic and moral implications: whether to ban Russian travelers.<\/p>\n Kyiv\u2019s allies have been aghast at the split-screen juxtaposition of Russian tourists sunning themselves on Mediterranean beaches while many Ukrainians spend some of their summer in bomb shelters, dodging missiles and artillery.<\/p>\n Fueled by a plea from Ukraine\u2019s government earlier this month, the debate over visa bans is raging from Brussels to Washington, underscoring longstanding fractures within the West over how aggressively to confront Russia in the war\u2019s next phase.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I suppose I can sympathize with the Ukrainians who are feeling this way, at least to a point. But the underlying questions are important ones that will be addressed at an EU conference in Prague coming up this week. Obviously, Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin are responsible for the war in Ukraine and all of the war crimes that have been witnessed thus far. But are the rank and file Russian citizens also culpable to the point where they should be banned from travel all across the European Union or beyond? <\/p>\n The NBC analysis suggests one theory that says that ordinary Russian citizens have been \u201cputting up little visible opposition\u201d to Putin\u2019s invasion. So does that represent a situation where they are \u201cenabling\u201d Putin\u2019s war? That seems like a bit of a stretch. If the United States is doing something that other countries don\u2019t like and you see images of throngs of American parading in the streets in support of it, you\u2019ll know they are doing that of their own free will and you might have a point in saying that rank-and-file Americans are at least somewhat culpable.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s really not the case in Russia for the vast majority of people. If you speak out against the war, you quickly wind up disappearing into the legal system, a forced labor camp, or far worse. Holding your tongue is something of a life insurance maneuver in much of Russia.<\/p>\n European supporters of the proposed ban claim that it would represent a different form of a sanction, pressuring the Russian government to withdraw from Ukraine by cutting off tourist industry access and making the Russian people unhappy with the cost of the invasion that they are being forced to pay. Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu pointed out that this isn\u2019t some sort of issue of abuse of regular Russians because \u201cthe right to enter any particular country is not a human right<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Not for nothing, but words cannot describe how much I would love to hear Joe Biden or his Press Secretary pull that line off with a straight face while we\u2019re still in the midst of the Biden border crisis. But I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll have the opportunity to put that idea to the test because at least thus far the White House is still opposing a general travel ban. A State Department spokesperson this week said that Biden \u201cwouldn\u2019t want to close off pathways to refuge and safety for Russia\u2019s dissidents or others who are vulnerable to human rights abuses.\u201d<\/p>\n The main problem with that argument is the fact that most \u201cdissidents\u201d wouldn\u2019t be coming here so they can hang five while riding the waves off of California\u2019s beaches. They would most likely be fleeing for their lives and requesting asylum. So how are we supposed to separate the asylum seekers from the tourists? It\u2019s a complicated situation to be sure, but in the end, Ukraine really doesn\u2019t have much to say about it. It\u2019s up to each individual country how the question is dealt with. They should be grateful for the endless supply of cash and weapons flowing freely into their country from the United States (at least the weapons that don\u2019t mysteriously disappear, anyway) and keep their noses out of our foreign policy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n