Over the last two years, a number of microstates, mainly those located in the Pacific, have introduced a visa-free regime with Russia.
For example, two years ago, the island nation of Fiji canceled visas for Russians, while the Kremlin offered similar terms to hypothetical tourists from Fiji.
A year ago, it was Vanuatu, microstate in Melanesia, that suddenly decided to introduce visa-free regime with the Russian Federation.
And now Mauritius, a distant island in the Indian Ocean close to Madagascar, also readies to join the visa-free club.…
Given the fact that Moscow has been losing bad in the Ukrainian (as well as Syrian and Turkish) issue in the UN General Assembly, it resorted to a good old buying of votes, desperately searching for any allies and attempting to secure at least some smallest foreign policy victories.
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People from a grim high-rise building on Smolenskaya Square in Moscow are buying the votes of those UN member states which traditionally abstain on “Ukrainian” resolutions. Usually a powerful Vanuatu, glorious Honduras and other countries with whom Russia has recently signed visa-free agreements, are too distant from the problems of Ukraine, Syria, or Yemen.
After all, Russians believe that in exchange for foreign political favors or substantial bribes, these countries may alter their position in the UN General Assembly from a neutral “abstained” to a categorical support of Russia.
My sources in the UN have been telling me this for years. And the situation has not changed a bit.
Full article: Russia’s new tactics (UNIAN)
Global Geopolitics 