The SBU Security Service of Ukraine has banned Eurovision 2017 participant from Russia Yulia Samoilova from entering Ukraine.
”The Security Service of Ukraine has put Russian citizen Yulia Samoilova on Ukraine`s stop list for a period of three years,” SBU press secretary Olena Hitlyanska wrote on Facebook.
The decision was made on the basis of information that she had violated the legislation of Ukraine.
Earlier, the SBU said they would take a weighted decision as for allowing Samoilova`s entry into Ukraine. Possible restrictions may arise over the Russian participant`s visit to the occupied Crimea in June 2015 where she took part in a show. The official Kyiv considers such visits without permission of the Ukrainian immigration authorities as an explicit violation of Ukrainian legislation.
In turn, Deputy Minister of Ukraine`s Information Policy Dmytro Zolotukhin suggested that Russia`s Eurovision entry is in fact part of an intricate smear campaign against Ukraine.
