Wider Europe Briefing: Stopping Former Russian Soldiers From Entering The EU

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I am drilling down on two issues: preventing former Russian soldiers from entering the EU and placing Russia on the anti-money laundering list.

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Briefing #1: Can The EU Prevent Former Russian Soldiers From Entering The Bloc?

What You Need To Know: Estonia is pushing to have Russian soldiers who have fought in the war in Ukraine banned from entering the Schengen area, a passport-free zone covering most of European Union member states. The idea, put forward in a discussion paper seen by RFE/RL and distributed to other EU capitals in late January, was briefly discussed when the bloc’s foreign ministers met in Brussels on January 29. According to EU officials that RFE/RL spoke to under condition of anonymity, the idea was positively received by those member states that took the floor and there was a general agreement that the work on the file will continue with both home affairs and foreign affairs experts in Brussels. The officials did, however, admit that questions also arose about the scale and practicality of preventing so many people from entering the bloc.

Deep Background: According to Tallinn, an estimated 1.5 million Russian citizens have taken part in combat operations in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 -- including both regular armed forces of the Russian Federation and proxy units such as the Wagner Group. Of these it is believed that 640,000 remain actively engaged, meaning that there are close to 1 million ex-fighters that are potential targets for the EU.

The potential security risk for the club is spelled out in the paper: “Combat experience and the use of violence, including likely participation in war crimes and other atrocities against the Ukrainian population, are common characteristics of these individuals. Their potential entry into and presence within the EU carries not only a general risk of violent crime but represents a major vector for the infiltration of organized crime, extremist movements, and hostile state operations across Europe.” It is also noted that these individuals can be “a fertile recruitment base for Russian intelligence services.”

The paper also states that there is a link between ex-combatants and increased violence inside Russia, notably among the estimated 180,000 prisoners that were recruited from penal colonies in the country to special military units fighting in Ukraine. The document notes that “many returnees have already committed serious crimes. The total number of which has reached a 15-year high in Russia in the first half of 2025, and this upsurge is likely linked to the mass return of ex-combatants” and adds that “these individuals’ freedom of movement poses a direct threat to the entire Schengen Area, independent of where entry occurs. They must have no place in Europe.”

Drilling Down:

The question now is how to stop them from coming to the EU. Back in September 2022, the EU adopted a decision to fully suspend the EU-Russia visa facilitation agreement, meaning that it is more expensive and complicated for Russian citizens to get to the bloc.
On top of that, Brussels has also sanctioned, meaning imposed a visa bans, on nearly 2,000 Russians for what the EU sees as their role in undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity. This list comprises oligarchs, businessmen, ministers, and top military officials.
The Estonian proposal, however, is not to use sanctions and the push to target ex-fighters will not be part of the EU’s 20th sanctions package on the Kremlin that is expected to be agreed by all member states later in February.
Instead, Tallinn is using another method: the Schengen entry ban. Already on January 9, Tallinn imposed the ban on 261 Russian ex-soldiers. The entry ban prevents non-EU individuals from entering all EU countries apart from Cyprus and Ireland as well as the non-EU Schengen members Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.
Valid for up to 5 years, it should be applicable in the entire Schengen zone and not just the country that filed the ban in the Schengen Information System (SIS) as Estonia recently did with the Russian fighters.
But while in principle one country can issue a Schengen-wide alert, individual countries can make exceptions and in the end each Schengen country is sovereign in terms of deciding who is allowed onto their territory.
This is why Estonia is asking for wider EU-backing on these measures, calling on "EU Member States and Schengen countries to put into effect a full ban on entry to the Schengen Area, and the refusal of visas and residence permits for all identified Russian nationals who have participated in the war of aggression against Ukraine."
Estonia also added that “this time-critical security initiative requires urgent political and practical support, and we call all interested parties to join the initiative and help incorporate individuals into the Schengen entry ban list as a matter of urgency”
Will other EU member states follow suit? Possibly, but they also recognize the difficulties. One is the near impossibility of getting individual details for each ex-combatant to register them in the system. "A few hundred, even a couple of thousands could work but we are talking about nearly a million people here," said one diplomat to RFE/RL
And while the Estonian initiative is considered sincere and useful, there is also a wariness in the club of overburdening the system and prompting other members to abuse it for pure political purposes.
An illustration of this came in the summer of last year when Romania banned Ion Ceban, the mayor of Moldova’s capital Chisinau, from entering the Schengen zone citing national-security concerns. Ceban is a rival to the pro-Western Moldovan President Maia Sandu who at the time was preparing her political alliance for tightly fought parliamentary elections that were subsequently won. The ban is still in place even though several EU capitals voiced concerns about the political nature of it.

Briefing #2: All You Need To Know As The EU Puts Russia On Its Anti-Money Laundering List

What You Need To Know: On January 29, Russia was added to the European Union blacklist of countries at high risk of money laundering and financing terrorism, further severing the political and economic ties between Brussels and Moscow four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In a rather opaque process, the initial decision was made by the European Commission on December 3, 2025, giving the European Parliament and the 27 EU member states one month to challenge the blacklisting. No such move was made, and the blacklisting was posted in the EU official journal, the bloc’s daily gazette of new laws and regulations, on January 9 stating that the measure will enter into force 20 days from publication, which was January 29.

Deep Background: The European Commission pointed out several shortcomings with the Russian financial system. These included the lack of independence of the country’s financial intelligence unit (Rosfinmonitoring), the lack of cooperation with foreign counterparts regarding the exchange of information and transparency of transaction beneficiaries, and the failure to sufficiently track crypto-asset transfers -- all reasons that EU officials believe can contribute to both money laundering and the financing of terrorism. The close cooperation between Russia and countries like Iran and North Korea, two other countries on the blacklist, was another reason for the decision.

The move also marks the EU's departure from its traditional alignment with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) listings. The FATF -- established by the Group of Seven (G7) in 1989 -- maintains the global "gray list" (jurisdictions under increased monitoring for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing deficiencies) and has published it since 2000.

FATF did suspend Russia as a member in 2023 as a result of the Ukrainian invasion, but the EU has been frustrated in its attempts to make FATF blacklist Moscow. Any such listing would need consensus, meaning that no member country actively opposes the decision. Despite both the EU and Ukraine providing the organization with evidence, fellow BRICS members such as Brazil, China, and South Africa opposed any further action beyond the suspension of membership. While FATF only has three countries on its blacklist -- Iran, Myanmar, and North Korea -- the EU list now comprises 26, with most additions made recently. In fact, the EU set up its own Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) in 2024, and, in the summer of last year, the bloc adopted legislation that would allow the bloc to blacklist countries that aren’t listed by FATF.

Drilling Down:

So, what will the Russia blacklisting mean in practice, especially as the EU already has adopted wide-ranging sanctions against the Kremlin in recent years that limit what the bloc’s banks and other financial services can do in Russia?
In short, EU financial institutions will have to strengthen their due diligence on all transactions with Russia. The bloc’s sanctions to date target specific Russian banks but now, at least in theory, European banks will have to pay attention to all transactions to and from Russia, including those routed through third countries. If any irregularity is suspected, banks must either ask for more clarity or curtail the transaction altogether.
The effect will be a further chilling of EU-Russia economic ties. In 2025, trade between the bloc and Russia reached its lowest level in over 20 years and it is expected to shrink further.
Another effect could be that financial institutions from third countries, such as India and the United Arab Emirates, might be forced to reconsider their current business with Russia as it might jeopardize their relationship with EU banks.
The thinking is that such countries always will prioritize the bigger and more lucrative European market to that of Russia, even though they admit that they haven’t seen such a shift quite yet.
One of the reasons is also Russia’s very deliberate shift to develop other types of payment channels such as cryptocurrencies, a move that is likely to only accelerate now. And it's a channel that the EU still hasn't found an efficient way to deal with, despite some EU sanctions on Russian crypto assets.

Looking Ahead

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte will be in Kyiv today, February 3, to address the country’s parliament. Ukraine’s chances of joining the military alliance remain slim, as some members are opposing the move, but expect the former Dutch prime minister to promise more Western military support to Kyiv.

That's all for this week!

Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on X @RikardJozwiak, or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Rikard Jozwiak

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