Czechia will no longer recognize non-biometric Russian passports

Effective Wednesday, the Czech Republic will no longer recognize non-biometric passports issued by the Russian Federation. Russian citizens holding such passports will be considered illegally present in Czechia, the country’s Foreign Ministry told ČTK.

Denmark has already taken a similar step. Czechia announced the decision at a meeting of the relevant EU body and called on other states to adopt the same measure.

A biometric passport is a passport that has machine-readable data and a data carrier with biometric data, such as facial images and fingerprints, that allows for the bearer's identification.

“If a Russian citizen presents a non-biometric passport in the Czech Republic, they are staying here illegally, and we are still working on what to do with them. Non-biometric passports are much easier to modify and forge,” Mariana Wernerova, from the ministry’s communications department, told ČTK.

“Security is a priority for our government. We will not wait for another sabotage. Anyone who wants to stay in our country must prove their identity credibly. And in the case of the Russians, a passport with non-biometric data, with which the murderers from the Vrbetice case arrived, among others, will no longer be enough to do that,” said Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský.

The Czech Republic suspects two officers of the Russian secret service GRU of being behind the 2014 two explosions of ammunition depots in Vrbětice, south Moravia. British investigators blame the same men for the 2018 poisoning of former Russian secret agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, UK.

Lipavský wants to continue to push a proposal in the European Union to restrict the movement of Russian diplomats in the Schengen area, which, he said, “is another instrument of espionage against democratic countries.”