Russia: EU Complaints Over Travel Ban ‘Absurd’

MOSCOW (AFP) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday dismissed the "absurdity" of EU complaints over a travel ban imposed by Moscow on 89 Europeans over the Ukraine crisis.

Date: 01 June 2015 - 21:53

News ID: ۱۴۵۶۸

"It is even quite embarrassing to explain the absurdity and awkwardness of such logic as it's an attempt to substitute international law with one's own political biases," Lavrov told reporters in Moscow amid a new spike in tensions with Brussels.
Moscow last week released a list of 89 European nationals who had been banned from travelling to Russia.
The European Union on Saturday called the blacklist "totally arbitrary and unjustified" and pointed to a lack of transparency over those targeted.
President Vladimir Putin's spokesman for his part told reporters that "we are having a hard time understanding this reaction."
The list includes past and serving parliamentarians and ministers who have openly criticized Putin and the war in Ukraine.
Military figures and secret service chiefs are also thought to be on the list.
Lavrov said those on the list "actively supported a state coup" in Ukraine, referring to a popular uprising in Kiev in 2014 which ousted Moscow-backed leader Viktor Yanukovych.
The uprising led Russia to seize the peninsula of Crimea in March 2014 and then buttress Russian-speaking separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Lavrov insisted that Russia's response was measured and merely followed Western sanctions.
EU officials said Moscow had asked for the list not to be made public. Lavrov said on Monday that Moscow had hoped to avoid a scandal.
"We simply let our partners in the European Union know that we, too, have a blacklist because we did not want to follow the European Union's bad example and stage a noisy campaign publicizing these names."
Meanwhile, U.S.-led NATO drills began Monday in the Baltic states and Poland, a move intended to reassure Russia's nervous neighbors amid tensions over Ukraine.
Russia's increased military presence in the Baltic Sea and regional airspace since its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine last year has jangled nerves in the area, which lay behind the Iron Curtain 25 years ago.
More than 6,000 troops from 13 NATO countries are participating in the Saber Strike 2015 drills in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, all EU and NATO members.
"This is one of the biggest exercises in Lithuania since we joined NATO" in 2004, Major General Almantas Leika, commander of Lithuania's land forces, told reporters in Vilnius.
"The huge allied presence demonstrates solidarity with the countries of this region," he said, adding that Lithuania is hosting the command centre for the drills.
NATO has been guarding the skies over the three small Baltic states since 2004, when they joined the defense alliance but lacked the air power to monitor their own airspace.
Last month, the Baltic trio formally asked NATO to permanently deploy several thousand troops in their region as a deterrent to Russia.
NATO has not yet replied to the request, military spokesman Lithuanian Captain Mindaugas Neimontas told AFP.
The exercises, organized by the U.S. Army in Europe, will run until June 19 and include Abrams tanks and B-52 bombers, General Leika said.
The drills take place after Russia last week began conducting unexpected war games involving 12,000 troops and 250 aircraft, at the same time as NATO planes joined Nordic air forces for a drill in Sweden's sub-Arctic north.