Some 170,000 Armenian citizens face risk of being deported from Russia

YEREVAN, February 14. /ARKA/. Some 170,000 Armenian citizens are face the risk of being deported from Russia, Svetlana Stepanova, a representative of the Russian embassy in Armenia, said Friday at a news conference. 

These are Armenian citizens, she said, who long ago or not so long ago traveled to Russia and have their permitted 90 days in Russia expired, but still remain in the country illegally. 

Stepanova said that their names are in the migration agency’s database, and therefore after crossing the border they will be prohibited from entering Russia again. 

“An automatic system works, and it doesn’t depend on human factor, and either Federal Migration Service or Federal Security Service adds nothing to it,” Novosti-Armenia quoted her as saying. 

Stepanova also said that those who committed two or more offences, for example, breached traffic rules, are prohibited from entering Russia for at least three years, and those Armenian citizens who had been deported have no right to travel to Russia for five years.  

Under the revised Russian laws, effective from January 1 this year citizens of some former Soviet republics, including Armenia, have the right to remain in the territory of the Russian Federation without registration for only 90 days within every 180 days. This means that citizens of Armenia cannot continually live in Russia for more than six months. -0---