MOSCOW. Jan 22 (Interfax) - More than 500,000 foreign citizens who had violated Russian laws were barred from visiting Russia in 2013, Federal Migration Service head Konstantin Romodanovsky said.
"The entry is practically closed for 530,000 foreign citizens. Twenty percent [of the bans] are the result of the activity of the Moscow department," he said at a meeting of the Federal Migration Service's Moscow department board on Wednesday.
Federal Migration Service press secretary Zalina Kornilova told Interfax earlier that the lawbreakers would be prohibited to visit Russia for three to ten years.
Foreign citizens are barred from visiting Russia if they have committed several offenses and outstayed the legal period of their presence in Russia, she said. Other grounds for the denied entry are deportation, expulsion or readmission and the use of a fake migrant card.
The Federal Migration Service said approximately 3.5 million foreign citizens had legally arrived in Russia but were working without a work permit.