Posted by 
More than 1,800 Russians entered Poland on visas issued “without any legal basis” over a period of 22 months between the start of Moscow’s war on Ukraine and this year, the head of Poland’s Supreme Audit Office (NIK) has said.
The office on Thursday published its findings on the activities of Poland’s foreign ministry from 2018 to 2024 during the previous far-right nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party government, flagging several irregularities.
“At least from November 2022 to May 2023, there was a non-transparent and corrupt mechanism at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to influence certain Polish consuls in order to speed up the processing of visa applications,” said NIK head Marian Banaś. “This includes issuing visas without the applicants appearing in person.”
Banaś also questioned the previous Warsaw government’s “Poland. Business Harbour” program, which encouraged specialists and companies to relocate to Poland but was canceled by the new pro-Western government of PM Donald Tusk earlier this year. Banaś claimed the visas issued under the program had “no legal basis.”
“This was the easiest, fastest and cheapest way to enter the territory of Poland and the EU, which was used by more than 1,800 citizens of the Russian Federation between March 1, 2022 and Dec. 31, 2023,” the NIK report stated. Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
Polish leader Tusk called the report’s findings “devastating.”
“After the attack on Ukraine, almost 2,000 Russians received Polish visas, often in violation of the law and in defiance of sanctions,” the PM said.
Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski also lamented the results: “We confirm that scandalous, undue pressure was exerted on Polish consuls,” he said.
“This is nothing new for the current leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it coincides with the results of our internal audits. We confirm that, unfortunately, especially between 2018 and 2023, there was a loss of control over the visa system,” the minister declared.
