The new initiative has been criticized by some foreign embassies, such as the US, who have described it as racist.
The spokesman for the US embassy in Russia, Jason Rebholz, previously said that the “xenophobic regulation” being implemented by the Russian government seeks to make “more difficult for foreigners to live in the country.”
Children up to six years of age, those with diplomatic passports, service passports, technical or administrative personnel of military attachés, commercial offices and “other representations of state organs of foreign countries” will be excluded from medical examinations.
Russia is experiencing an “explosion” of covid infections attributed to the Delta variant
Nor will Belarusian citizens have to carry out the checks.