A spokesperson for SBU, the Security Service of Ukraine, was quoted by the news agency Interfax saying: “SBU has made a decision to ban French actor Gerard Depardieu from entering Ukraine for five years”.
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A spokeswoman for the Ukrainian government Olena Hitlyanska said that the 66 year old actor was a “threat to national security” and now barred from entering the country by way of a blacklist organised by the state’s culture minister Ivan Kirilenko. The ministry was already engrossed in making a list of actors, musicians and other cultural figures who share Depardieu’s views on the riot-riddled country.
She did not cite any specific comments by Mr Depardieu, who starred in films including Cyrano de Bergerac and Green Card and is notorious for alcohol-fuelled off-screen antics including drink-driving and urinating in the aisle of an aeroplane.
Depardieu has been taking sanctuary in Belgium and Russian Federation since quitting France in 2012 in a row over taxes.
The 10 lower and upper house members used their weekend stay to praise Russian President Vladimir Putin and the living standards of the economically-isolated Black Sea peninsula – seized from Ukraine in the wake of last year’s ouster of its Kremlin-backed president.
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Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called the trip “irresponsible” and said it may impose entry bans on the French lawmakers. Putin, he said, is one of his good pals.
