EU denies entry to the Russian Nationalist Aleksandr Dugin
18/05/2016 16:58
A prominent Kremlin-connected nationalist ideologue says he has been denied entry into the European Union after arriving at a Greek airport, despite not being on an EU sanctions list.
Aleksandr Dugin, the virulently anti-Western head of the Russia-based International Eurasian Movement, said on May 17 that Greek border guards refused to let him enter the country after he arrived at the airport in the city of Thessaloniki.
The border guards said he was stopped from entering the EU at the request of Hungarian authorities, Dugin told the conservative, religious-themed television channel Tsargrad, where he serves as editor in chief.
The United States last year slapped sanctions on Dugin, citing his affiliation with a group that Washington says has “actively recruited individuals with military and combat experience to fight on behalf of Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.”
Dugin has courted both left-wing and right-wing political groups in Hungary, Greece, and other EU member states. He said he had traveled to Greece in connection with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s planned upcoming visit to the country.
He called his detention “rather strange,” saying that he had “freely traveled” in the EU in recent months.
“We are talking about an attempt to darken Russian-Greek relations,” Dugin said.
