You're reading: Newspaper: A number of citizens of Georgia, US and Serbia banned from entering Ukraine

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) have satisfied an inquiry of Party of Regions MP Oleh Tsariov to deny entry into Ukraine to 36 people, including former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, 29 other citizens of Georgia, five U.S. citizens and a citizen of Serbia, the Kommersant Ukraine newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Tsariov told the newspaper that they are suspected of “consulting with the opposition to destabilize the situation in the country.”

“The more frequent visits by foreign political consultants and specialists in protest activity, whose activity poses a threat to national security, cause quite reasonable fears,” he wrote in the inquiry, to which he filed a list of “persons who, as part of the advisory work of the opposition,” get a chance to realize “the political interests of other countries.”

The list includes a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, John Hopkins University, Taras Kuzio, a member of the expert council of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on European Integration, Andreas Umland, as well as Brian Fink, Myron Wasylyk, and Alexander Roth (all from the United States). Tsariov described Roth as “the world’s best specialist in organizing revolutions through social networks.”

Another person on the list is Serbian citizen Marko Ivkovic, who “with a team of Serbs organized a revolution against Slobodan Milosevic” and promoted a similar scenario in Ukraine.

Tsariov filed a respective inquiry to SBU Chief Oleksandr Yakymenko and Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara on December 8. He said that “the destabilization of the situation in Ukraine, street activity and the seizure of buildings are planned in nature” and that “the organization of such campaigns requires the participation of concerned specialists.”

The SBU’s press center told Interfax-Ukraine that it was not yet commenting on this report.