SBU may reinstate list of “undesirable individuals” from Russia

The act of vandalism on Mount Hoverli may prompt a return to the use of bans on “undesirable individuals” between Ukraine and Russia.

Kyiv and Moscow stated several months ago that they had agreed to stop such practices. However the Ukrainian Security Service [SBU] has announced that it has reinstated persona non grata status for two Russian nationals – Alexander Dugin and Pavel Zarifulin, the leaders of the pro-Russian extremist organizations which call themselves Eurasian.

As reported here, it is activists of these organizations who are suspected of being responsible for the recent desecration of Ukrainian State emblems on Mount Hoverli.

SBU spokesperson Marina Ostapenko states that law enforcement agencies have uncovered the crime and approached Russia’s FSB asking for assistance in ensuring that the organizers and perpetrators are handed over to the Ukrainian authorities.  Those in question are one Ukrainian and two Russian nationals seen in the Hoverli district at the time the crime was committed.

Earlier, during a meeting with representatives of Jewish civic organizations and communities in Ukraine, President Yushchenko said that attacks on members of Jewish communities and incitement to inter-ethnic enmity “are on a par with the actions of provocateurs who in recent times have repeatedly attempted to vandalize Ukrainian national emblems and State symbols (at Hoverli, in Kharkiv, in Kruty” [where a memorial stands to the students who virtually unarmed attempted to defend the National Republic against the Bolsheviks – translator].

“We must work in a spirit of reconciliation and respect”, the President added.  He stressed that his position on this issue was unequivocal, and that the Security Service and law enforcement agencies must do their utmost to find those responsible and ensure severe and full punishment in accordance with the law.

The acting Head of the SBU Valentin Nalyvaichenko, addressing the meeting, stated that with the direct involvement of the SBU, law enforcement agencies had brought those responsible for organizing the beating up of believers near the Brodsky Synagogue in Kyiv in 2002 to answer. They had established those responsible for the damage in May 2006 of graves at the Zhytomyr Cemetery, and that together with the police they had identified and prosecuted the person who in March 2006 desecrated the Monument to the Holocaust in Sevastopol, and had prosecuted 3 people who had committed a series of acts of vandalism against monuments to victims of the Holocaust and at a cemetery in Odessa.

According to the SBU press service, Mr Nalyvaichenko also stated that on the instruction of the President, the SBU was creating special units for fighting manifestations of xenophobia.

www.bbc.co.uk/ukrainian