It’s staggering that the EU still issues more than half a million visas each year to Russian citizens. As @IlvesToomas points out on the @ContRiftShow today, it’s Spain, France, and Italy that still issue the vast majority of all those visas and are holding up efforts to safeguard Europeans by finally banning them. In fact, the European Commission recently revealed that this figure rose in 2025 to 618,000 Schengen visas issued to Russian citizens. The refusal rate is just around 6%. How can this possibly continue while Spain, France, and Italy, and all other European nations face increased attacks by Russia, often involving those visitors?

President @IlvesToomas explains Germany’s intelligence disaster on the latest episode of the @ContRiftShow, which he hosts with @AndyValvur. As Ilves notes, the international relationship with Germany’s BND spy agency has been problematic for a while.. ever since Gerhard Schröder became Chancellor, funnily enough. During his chancellorship, the BND even unwittingly recruited a spy for Russia as their informant in the Baltics. Herman Simm was exposed with the help of Lithuanian counterintelligence and convicted by Estonia. Germany thought it was getting info on Russian activities in the Baltics but was actually probably just paying for Russian disinformation. These days it’s free on X, of course. Anyway, do follow the Continental Rift and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Full episode here: youtu.be/CLiZEgmbIYc