The woman, identified by Poland’s security services as “Mrs. Lyudmyla Kozlovska (Ludmiła Kozłowska),” heads the Open Dialogue Foundation, a Poland-based organisation that has reportedly called for the conservative government in Warsaw to be overthrown.
The Polish security services said on Monday they had “issued a negative opinion regarding” an application for a residence permit from Kozlovska.
“As a result, Mrs. Kozlovska has been banned from entering the territory of Poland and the EU,” Stanisław Żaryn, a spokesman for Poland's security services chief, said in a statement.
The “negative opinion” issued by the Counterintelligence Department of Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) stems from “serious doubts regarding the funding of the Open Dialog Foundation Mrs. Kozlovska is running, which may produce further legal effects,” Żaryn said in his statement.
He added: “Given the statutory constraints as well as the ongoing tax inspection, for the time being no further details of this matter can be made available to the public …”
According to Polish public broadcaster TVP, Kozlovska was detained at an airport in Brussels on August 13 and deported to Kiev a day later.
According to a Moldova-based website, Kozlovska aided Russia in its “hybrid warfare” against the West.
The en.publika.md website has said that Kozlovska worked for “Russian services” to aid the Kremlin’s “war against Europe.”
It also reported that the Open Dialogue Foundation was known for its “aggressive” lobbying in European institutions “against the main enemies of Russia in Eastern Europe, Poland and Ukraine.”
According to Poland’s wpolityce.pl website, the Open Dialogue Foundation “drew up a 16-point plan to overthrow the Polish government” last summer.
wpolityce.pl in December said it had seen “the Russian passports” of some of the people who were the foundation’s biggest donors from 2012 to 2014.
Earlier last year, Poland’s TVP reported that the Open Dialogue Foundation—which said it sought to protect human rights, democracy and the rule of law in the post-Soviet region—had received funding from Russian businesses.
TVP cited commentators as saying that Russian security services may have been involved in supporting the foundation.
(gs)
Source" TVP Info, PAP/IAR