Director of the Institute of the Countries of the CIS and Russian State Duma member Konstantin Zatulin
Photo: Kirill Tulin
|
 |
Russian Foreign Ministry Miffed at Ukrainian Security Service Institute Action
The Ukrainian Security Service has sent that country’s Justice Ministry material on the closure of the Ukrainian branch of the Institute of the Countries of the CIS. The institute is accused of anti-Ukrainian propaganda and denial of the Holodomor in Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry department of information and the press reports. The Security Service is has banned Russian public figures from entering the country at various times, including the director of the Institute of the Countries of the CIS Russian State Duma member Konstantin Zatulin.
Zatulin was handed a document indicating that he was not permitted to enter Ukraine when he landed at the Simferopol airport with a Russian delegation in late July of this year. That was the third time that he had been denied entry to the country. In 1996, he was turned away from the Crimea (which he demands be seized from Ukraine), and in 2006 he was refused entry again. This year’s trip coincided with the 1020th anniversary of the adoption of Christianity by Kievan Rus. He had harshly criticized the observations planned for that event.
The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that the Ukrainian branch of the Institute for the Countries of the CIS is a scientific nongovernmental agency registered with the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice that gives fair appraisals of Russian-Ukrainian ties. The institute is well-known for its positions that run counter to the recent reconsideration of the countries’ common past.
www.kommersant.com
|
|
|
