Chinese bloggers arrive in Mariupol: Foreign Ministry wants to ban all “touring” Chinese bloggers from Ukraine

A group of Chinese bloggers illegally arrived in temporarily occupied Mariupol, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine is initiating a ban on entry to Ukraine for all "touring" Chinese bloggers. Source: Oleh Nikolenko, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, on Facebook; Sergei Aksyonov, the so-called head of occupied Crimea, on Telegram Quote from Nikolenko: "According to available information, a group of Chinese bloggers has arrived in the temporarily occupied city [of Mariupol - ed.].

Their arrival is illegal. It grossly violates the legislation of Ukraine that regulates the crossing of the state border by foreigners. 

... The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine is initiating a ban on entry to Ukraine for all Chinese 'touring' bloggers."

Details: Nikolenko stressed that Ukraine respects the territorial integrity of China and expects the Chinese side to explain the purpose of the Chinese citizens' stay in Mariupol, as well as the way they entered the temporarily occupied Ukrainian city.  Nikolenko also shared a video of Chinese "opera singer" Fang Wang performing the song Katyusha on the ruins of the Mariupol drama theatre, where the Russian army killed more than 600 innocent people (Katyusha is a popular Soviet song, one of the informal symbols of World War II for the Russians - ed.).

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On Thursday, Sergei Aksyonov boasted of a "delegation from China" that he said had arrived on the Russian-occupied Ukrainian peninsula.

He claimed that they were "representatives of the media and cultural sphere of China" with whom he discussed "tourism issues". According to Aksyonov, they supposedly informed him that "tourists from China are ready to come to Crimea". He also claimed that they agreed on a visit to Crimea by Chinese businessmen.

Background:  In 2021, the Russian-backed "Ministry of Resorts and Tourism of Crimea" posed a group of traders from Moscow wholesale markets as a "delegation from China". This was discovered by the Russian media when analysing the registers of legal entities.

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