Ukrainian Security Service Moves to Ban Marine Le Pen After Crimea Remark

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) has asked the Foreign Ministry to ban French far-right leader Marine Le Pen from entering the country after her Crimea remark, the SBU chief of staff Oleksandr Tkachuk said Wednesday.

KIEV (Sputnik) – Le Pen, a frontrunner in the French race for presidency from the National Front (FN) party, told local media on Tuesday she saw Crimea as an integral part of Russia after Crimean residents voted overwhelmingly to secede from Ukraine.

"On January 3, the SBU sent a letter to the Foreign Affairs Ministry. I think we can expect an affirmative reply as early as today and our initiative to ban Mrs. Le Pen from entering our country will be upheld," Tkachuk said, as quoted by a local television channel, 112 Ukraina.

Crimea seceded from Ukraine after a March 2014 referendum which found that almost 97 percent of its predominantly ethnic Russian population voted to reunite with Russia. Kiev, as well as Brussels, Washington and their allies, do not recognize the result of the vote and consider the peninsula to be an occupied territory.

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