Ukraine May Ban France’s Marine Le Pen for Five Years – Security Service

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has requested a permit from the national Foreign Ministry to ban French far-right leader Marine Le Pen from coming to Ukraine for five years, according to a Ukrainian security official.

KIEV (Sputnik) — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen could be banned from entering Ukraine for five years after defying Kiev’s claim to the Russian-majority region of Crimea, a Ukrainian security official said Wednesday.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has requested a permit from the national Foreign Ministry to ban the leader of the National Front party from coming to Ukraine after she argued Crimea became an integral part of Russia after voting in a 2014 referendum.

"If our call to ban Mrs. Le Pen from entering Ukraine will be backed by the Foreign Ministry we will decide how many years restrictions will last. Any term can be agreed, up to five years," the SBU chief of staff, Oleksandr Tkachuk, told the local news agency UNIAN.

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.