We’ve achieved a partial win. Malta announced that it suspended its cash for passports scheme for people from Russia and Belarus.

It’s a partial win because this suspension is only temporary. And it only covers passport applications from people of Russia and Belarus. The whole scheme should be scrapped altogether.

On the 21st of February, I called on Malta to stop selling passports because it was creating a security risk for the European region. It took Malta’s government a further 9 days to reluctantly reach this conclusion.

It’s strange that we have to move heaven and earth to change Malta’s pro-Kremlin stance. More on that here. It shouldn’t be this way. Robert Abela should be leading the Maltese fight against Putin and what he stands for. Unfortunately, the job of defending democracy and freedom is once again left to the same journalists, activists, and citizens.

We are allowed to celebrate this as a small victory. But it will be a true victory once this whole sham of golden passports is ended once and for all.