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In all consular departments of foreign embassies where we sought clarification, they strongly recommend applying for a visa at the embassy of the country you intend to visit. You must follow this same rule if you apply to the visa support center in Kyiv, - get a German Schengen if you plan to go to Germany, or an Italian one if traveling to Rome. If you want to visit several Schengen countries, apply for a visa in the country you plan to visit first. From there, you can travel to any state that is part of the Schengen area (France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, etc.).
If you try to fly from Ukraine to Germany with a Schengen visa issued by the Finnish consulate, you might easily be denied entry into the country and even banned from entering the Schengen area for up to 5 years. After all, Western Europe is truly a single space only for local residents. Our compatriots should be prepared that at the border checkpoint they may be stopped and asked for an invitation or hotel reservation confirmation.
As the issue was going to press, the editorial office received a report that hundreds of Schengen visas had been canceled at Helsinki Airport and travelers were turned back at the border because attempts were made to make a first trip to some Schengen country via Finland with visas issued by the Finnish embassy or consulates.
The Finnish embassy warns: to go to Germany via Finland, you need a German visa. The Finnish embassy has issued an official reminder to participants in the travel market. It notes that recently there have been quite many cases where a Schengen visa is requested from the Finnish embassy, although the purpose of the trip is to visit some other Schengen country. The embassy reminds that a visa must be requested from the representation of the country that is the main destination. If traveling on a single-entry visa in such a way that, for example, the traveler goes to Germany via Finland, the visa must be requested from the German embassy, regardless of the planned transit through Finland. The same should be done in cases of a multiple-entry visa, when the first trip to Finland is a transit trip.
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