Ukrainian Blacklist Likely to Stay 'Until Poroshenko’s Government Leaves'

Ukraine is unlikely to scrap the sanctions it has imposed on foreign nationals and companies as long as President Petro Poroshenko remains in power, Slobodan Samardzija, a Serbian journalist on Kiev’s blacklist, told Sputnik on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Samardzija, a contributor to Serbia’s oldest daily newspaper Politika, was banned from entering Ukraine last year after monitoring local elections in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in November as part of an international team.

"Under this government of Mr. Poroshenko, I don’t think the sanctions will be lifted. I believe that maybe when things settle down," the journalist told Sputnik.

Ukraine expanded its sanctions list on Wednesday to include around a hundred legal entities and 388 individuals, mostly state officials, politicians and journalists, based in Russia and other countries. The sanctions stipulate year-long entry bans and asset freezes.

Samardzija features on the new blacklist. Politika’s editorial board confirmed to Sputnik that the journalist remains a contributor to the newspaper, adding that it had no exact details on the reasons behind Kiev’s decision to target Samardzija.

"I was among the group of international observers of the elections in Donetsk. We did our job on the elections. After that I found out that I was on the black list. Only because of that I was added to the black list," Samardzija said, adding that he was never officially notified by Kiev of his inclusion on the list.