UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 7, 2018. U.S. Consulate-General in Yekaterinburg will have to cut down on the number of visas to be issued in 2018 due to staff shortage, Consul General Dr. Paul M. Carter, Jr. told RIA Novosti in his recent interview.

According to the official, they had to limit the scope of their consular activity (including the processing of visa applications) following the Russian Government’s rather ungrounded decision to lay off some of the diplomatic mission’s staff. As a matter of fact, the consulate did keep working on visa proceedings, renewing applicants’ visas where no interviews were necessary. No new interviews could be made available, however. The interviews did resume in early December, but the current staff shortage means the number of interviews will be limited and so that of new visas will have to go down from the 16,000 to 17,000 visas the consulate used to grant earlier.

Dr. Carter said the large-scale personnel layoffs resulted in, roughly, a 60% decrease in the number of the Yekaterinburg consulate employees.

According to Dr. Carter, this was naturally very hard, as the consulate can hardly operate on a larger or a better scale with fewer people around. The personnel cuts resulted in having to give up on some of the programs, as well as the scope of visa services.