Ukrainian separatists blocked from entering Poland?
PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge
23.02.2015 10:09
The founder of a new pro-Russian party in Poland has stated that several Ukrainian separatists that he had invited to Poland were denied entry to the country.
Mateusz Piskorski (L), leader of the Change party (Zmiana), at its first congress in Warsaw. Photo: PAP/Tomasz Gzell
Mateusz Piskorski, head of the fledgling Change party (Zmiana), had invited the separatists to his party's first congress, which took place over the weekend.
Among those given invitations by hand by Piskorski two weeks ago in Minsk, Belarus, was Alexander Kofman, foreign minister of the self-styled Donetsk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine.
During the party congress in Warsaw, Piskorski said that pro-Russian separatists were ''fighting with a fascist regime in Ukraine.''
Piskorski was a former member of the Self Defence party (Samoobrona), a left-wing, populist group that had its heyday between 2001 and 2007. The party briefly served as a junior coalition partner in government from 2005-2007.
Self Defence's late leader Andrzej Lepper, who committed suicide in 2011 amid spiralling debts, had also gone out on a limb in Poland, supporting Belarus's authoritarian leader President Alexander Lukashenko and Venezuela's then president Hugo Chavez.
In comments related to monitoring Russian propaganda, Poland's foreign minister Grzegorz Schetyna said on Friday that the new Change party should be closely observed.
“We have to look very carefully into who is financially backing this undertaking and for whom the party will be working for,'' he stressed. (nh)
Source: Gazeta Wyborcza