Western experts have speculated that the Russian Parliament was deliberately delaying the ratification of the agreement in order to use it as a bargaining chip when dealing with other issues. Official representatives of Western countries raise the bar even higher. A senior Western diplomat working in Moscow, who asked to remain anonymous, even questioned the ability of the Russian Federation - as it was publicly announced - 'to fulfill the voluminous requirements from the list of joint steps towards the abolition of visas with the EU' in a year. 'If Moscow drags the ratification of the agreement with the US out for six months, what is to be expected from a much more complex dialogue with the EU?' - the perplexed diplomat told Ъ.

In Moscow, all of these assumptions and fears are rejected. As Ъ was told by the first deputy head of the Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs Andrei Klimov, the State Duma never got the document in question for ratification. 'We don't have the agreement, respectively, there's nothing to ratify so far,' - he explained.

Ъ's source in the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that the document hasn't yet been passed to the Parliament. According to him, the agreement is still being worked on in the Ministry of Justice. The matter is that three-year multiple-entry visas which will be issued to tourists and businessmen of the both countries are not provided for with Russian legislation. Therefore, along with the ratification of the agreement on visa facilitation itself, the Duma will have to pass a series of regulations that are now under preparation in the Ministry of Justice. Though, the Ministry of Justice told Ъ that a positive conclusion on the legal agreement examination results was sent yesterday to the Foreign Ministry.