Mikhail Gorbachev declared persona non grata in Ukraine

The Ukrainian authorities have prevented Mikhail Gorbachev, the first and the only President of the USSR, from entering Ukraine, writes «Rossiyskaya Gazeta». According to the SBU Security Service of Ukraine, the decision was caused by the fact that Mikhail Gorbachev backed the reunification of Crimea and Russia.

Member of Parliament, adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister Anton Gerashchenko had lodged a motion with the SBU Security Service of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asking to refuse entry into Ukraine to former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev for backing the annexation of Crimea. Gerashchenko is well-known for his initiatives of that sort. This time he decided that Kiev should close the doors to Mikhail Gorbachev’s visits to Europe as he did not like the interview the first Soviet president had given to a British newspaper Sunday Times.

The former Soviet President said giving the interview that if he had been in Vladimir Putin’s shoes, he would have done the same thing.

The Former Soviet President took the decision made by the Ukrainian authorities easy claiming that he did not want to be engaged in all those arguments and saying that he had not been to Ukraine for a long time and was not going to visit the country.