ISTANBUL

Russia on Thursday criticized EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas after Brussels decided to end multi-entry Schengen visas for most Russians, saying the bloc “feeds and waters millions of illegal migrants.”

Responding to Kallas’s comment that traveling to the EU is “a privilege, not a right,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram that the EU’s policy favors undocumented migrants rather than law-abiding Russian tourists.

“She was, of course, speaking about the millions of illegal migrants who are now being given preferential treatment by the European Union,” Zakharova said, adding that the issue was “not about legal tourists who paid for visas and went to see the Eiffel Tower and go shopping in Milan.” She sarcastically called Kallas “a person of rare intelligence.”

The EU on Friday said it would deny Russians multi-entry visas due to its the war on Ukraine.