Nearly one million Russian citizens have entered the European Union in the past six months since their country invaded Ukraine, the EU's border agency Frontex announced Thursday.

A total of 998,085 Russian passport holders entered the EU from the day of the invasion on February 24 to August 22, a

Frontex

spokesman told German news agency DPA.

Meanwhile, some 7.7 million Ukrainian citizens have entered the EU and 4.7 million have returned to their homeland since the start of the Russian occupation, Frontex said earlier this month.

The figures come as the EU debates a visa ban on Russian tourists that has been publicly supported by Finland, the Czech Republic and Estonia.

Latvia, Lithuania and Poland stopped issuing new tourist visas to Russians after the February 24 invasion of Ukraine.

While Estonia banned the entry of Russians with existing visas and Finland promised to reduce the number of applications processed for Russian tourist visas by 90 percent from September 1.

As a compromise, the Czech government is expected to propose higher costs and processing times for short-term entry visas for Russians and Belarusians at an EU meeting next week.

The European Commission said Russian visa applications should be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

/Telegraph/