Every claim on this page is carried by an entry that is already published and already sourced. Nothing here is asserted on its own authority - each theme names the records that support it and links straight to them, so any sentence can be checked in two clicks. Where the record is thin, this page says so rather than filling the gap with adjectives.
Germany
Germany appears here more often than any other country, and the record is not anecdotal: the federal government counted the reports itself, the anti-discrimination agency published the letters people received from their banks, and a savings bank restricted a customer's card because of where she was born. Thirty years of German polling asked repeatedly about Russia and almost never about Russians.
- Bank letters and refused service: Russian nationals complain to the federal anti-discrimination agency ·Berlin, Germany
- German government reports 196 anti-discrimination requests, 74 about banks ·Deutscher Bundestag, Germany
- Sparkasse KoelnBonn restricted card and payment functions on about 2,000 accounts ·Cologne, Germany
- Thirty years of German polls on Russia, and almost none about Russians ·Germany
The United Kingdom
One case stands for the British approach, and it is a large one: Wimbledon barred players by nationality alone, against the objection of the tours that govern the sport. The measure was not aimed at a state - it was aimed at individuals holding the wrong passport. The United Kingdom is under-documented in this archive relative to its role; that is a gap in what has been written up here, not a shortage of material.
Money and banking
The pattern that touches the most ordinary lives is the bank account. Accounts refused, cards restricted, payments held - decided by nationality or by place of birth rather than by anything the customer did. A Dutch human rights body examined one bank's practice and found against it. These are not sanctions on named individuals; they are institutions applying a category.
- Reuters reports EU banks refusing accounts to Russian residents not under sanctions ·European Union
- ING restricted accounts it recorded as Russian; four Dutch customers' complaints failed ·College voor de Rechten van de Mens, Netherlands
- Bank letters and refused service: Russian nationals complain to the federal anti-discrimination agency ·Berlin, Germany
- Sparkasse KoelnBonn restricted card and payment functions on about 2,000 accounts ·Cologne, Germany
Universities and study
Admission closed by passport. A university stopped accepting applicants of one nationality; a state stopped issuing study visas to them; and in Czechia the Public Defender of Rights examined what the universities were doing and said it was discrimination. Whatever a government's quarrel is, it is not with a nineteen-year-old applying to study.
- University of Tartu barred new applicants who are Russian or Belarusian citizens ·Tartu, Estonia
- Estonia stopped issuing study visas and residence permits to Russian citizens ·Estonia
- Czech universities refused Russians and Belarusians; ombudsman faulted sanctions office ·Public Defender of Rights, Czechia
Sport and culture
Competitions and stages closed to people by nationality: tennis players, skiers, pianists, gymnasts. This is the theme where the exclusion has already been tested and found wanting - the Court of Arbitration for Sport held that a ban on athletes for their nationality was discriminatory. The pianists and the gymnasts had no such forum.
- Russian and Belarusian players barred from Wimbledon 2022; ATP fined the LTA £820,000 ·United Kingdom
- CAS finds FIS ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes by nationality discriminatory ·Lausanne, Switzerland
- Dublin piano competition barred nine Russian pianists, then reversed the ban ·Dublin, Ireland
- Croatia refused visas to nine of Russia's gymnastics delegation, then issued four ·Zagreb, Croatia
Residence and movement
The most consequential measures are the ones that decide where a person may live. Latvia's migration office told hundreds of Russian citizens - many of them long-settled residents - that they had to leave. Visas refused, permits withdrawn, a life of decades made conditional on a language test or a form.
- Latvia's migration office told 841 Russian citizens to leave by 13 October 2025 ·Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (PMLP), Latvia
- Estonia stopped issuing study visas and residence permits to Russian citizens ·Estonia
- Croatia refused visas to nine of Russia's gymnastics delegation, then issued four ·Zagreb, Croatia
What official bodies found
This is the part hardest to wave away, because none of it comes from us. The EU's own rights agency recorded incidents against Russians and Russian-speakers. The German government answered a parliamentary question with a count. A Czech ombudsman, a Dutch human rights institute and an international sports court each examined a specific practice and each found against it. The pattern is not alleged here; it is documented by the institutions of the countries where it happened.
- EU rights agency records police figures on incidents against Russian speakers ·European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Vienna, Austria
- German government reports 196 anti-discrimination requests, 74 about banks ·Deutscher Bundestag, Germany
- Czech universities refused Russians and Belarusians; ombudsman faulted sanctions office ·Public Defender of Rights, Czechia
- ING restricted accounts it recorded as Russian; four Dutch customers' complaints failed ·College voor de Rechten van de Mens, Netherlands
- CAS finds FIS ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes by nationality discriminatory ·Lausanne, Switzerland
What this is, and what it is not
This is not a claim that ordinary Germans or Britons hate Russians, and it is not a claim that every measure listed here was taken in bad faith. It is a narrower and better-supported claim: that across banking, universities, sport, culture and residence, people have been treated according to a passport rather than according to anything they did - and that this has been recorded, repeatedly, by the official bodies of the countries where it happened. The archive is incomplete and openly so; the entries that exist are dated, sourced and correctable.