MOSCOW, Russia – The Russian Interior Minister’s memo about “undesirability” of foreign travel for Russian police officers was taken as an order by many ranking police officials in Moscow and throughout Russia, who immediately confiscated their subordinates’ passports.
Police sources said that all the officers “from platoon commander and up” have already surrendered their passports to their superiors and, at the moment, the passports of all junior staff are being collected.
Apparently such bizarre orders were triggered by an earlier equally-bizarre “recommendation” from the Russian Foreign Ministry that all Russian citizens should avoid travel to 108 countries that “have extradition treaties with the United States.”