Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Brazhe banned designer and blogger Artemy Lebedev and comedian Valery Ponomarenko from entering the country. This was reported on the social network X.
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“I have decided to include Russian citizens Artemy Lebedev and Valery Ponomarenko in the list of persons undesirable for the Republic of Latvia (persona non grata) and ban them from entering Latvia indefinitely. The decision was made in accordance with part 2 of art. 61 of the Immigration Law,” said the head of the Foreign Ministry.
According to Delfi.lv, Ponomarenko was going to give two concerts in Latvia in November, in Rezekne and Daugavpils. Lebedev, according to the publication, from the beginning of hostilities in Ukraine “expressed sympathy for the Russian government” and criticized the West.
The designer supported Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and in 2015 his studio developed a logo for the peninsula.
In 2017, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) banned Lebedev from entering Ukraine “in connection with his activities aimed at causing damage in the field of information security.” In January 2022, he was placed on Ukraine’s sanctions list and a year later he was accused of justifying Russia’s actions towards Ukraine. Two of Lebedev’s apartments in Kyiv were confiscated.
In March 2023, Latvia blacklisted 35 Russians, including artists Nadezh Babkina and singer SHAMAN. The country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs blacklisted them and banned them from entering the country.
In August, after an interview with Artemy Lebedev, which he gave to Yuri Dudu (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia), the director of the Safe Internet League, Ekaterina Mizulina, considered the obscene distortion of his surname an insult. He said he would sue Lebedev.
Author:
Nikolai Tikhonov
Source: RB
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
