Latvia bans SHAMAN, Nadezhda Babkina and Lera Kudryavtseva from entering

Latvia’s Foreign Ministry banned 35 Russians from entering the republic indefinitely for supporting the military operation in Ukraine. On this Friday, March 17, reported on the website of the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In particular, the “blacklist” included:

music performers SHAMAN (Yaroslav Dronov), Alexander Marshal, Nadezhda Babkina, Akim Apachev, Natalya Kachura; TV presenters Lera Kudryavtseva, Yulia Baranovskaya and Ruslan Ostashko; radio host Anna Shafran; actress Polina Agureeva and Kirill Kuznetsov; comedian Stanislav Starovoitov; political scientists Yevgeny Satanovsky, Semyon Bagdasarov, Rostislav Ishchenko, Gevorg Mirzayan and Dmitry Evstafiev; journalists Yulia Vityazeva, Mikhail Shakhnazarov; Rodion Miroshnik, former head of the representative office of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) in Russia.

In early March, the Russian Foreign Ministry banned entry into the country for 144 Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian citizens. The agency noted that the “shutdown list” included “the ministers, lawmakers and public figures most hostile” to Russia. All of them, according to Moscow, are involved in the “barbaric campaign for the mass demolition of monuments to Soviet soldiers-liberators, the persecution of the Russian-speaking population, the rewriting of history, the glorification of Nazism.”

“This step was taken in response to the Baltic states’ active lobbying for sanctions and other measures against Russia, interference in our internal affairs, inciting Russophobic sentiments,” the Foreign Ministry said.