Azerbaijan Blacklists Russian Female Politicians, Activists for Visiting Artsakh

BAKU (Panorama.am) — The Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan has banned several Russian female politicians and activists from entering the country after they visited Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh), TASS reports, citing the ministry’s press service.

During the trip, the group visited the Artsakh frontline and conveyed a message of peace to the parties and mediators of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict “to spare the lives of the 18-20 year old Armenian and Azerbaijani soldiers on both sides of the border, to not make their parents and children sorrowful, o play with the fates of hundreds of families, to reject the military solution of the conflict and seek the conflict settlement exclusively through peaceful means.’

The list includes among others first deputy chairperson of the Duma international affairs committee Svetlana Zhurova, writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya and the founder of Vera Hospice Charity Fund, Nyuta Federmesser. They visited Artsakh within the framework of the Women for Peace initiative of Armenian prime minister’s wife, Anna Hakopyan-Pashinyan, the press service said.

“Svetlana Zhurova, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Anna Federmesser and some others were blacklisted for breach of republic’s legislation – for an illegal visit to “occupied territories” of Azerbaijan,” it said.

Also on the list are head of the Volunteers Helping Orphans charity Yelena Alshanskaya, journalists Katerina Gordeyeva and Kira Altman, director of the DreamSki foundation Olga Shilova.

Earlier, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry warned it would blacklist the Russian women visiting Nagorno Karabakh together with the wife of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.