Persona Non Grata

What happened to the days of starving them out? Russia is really half-assing it these days. (Ern) From RFE/RL:

HAS RUSSIA BLACKLISTED UKRAINIAN POLITICIANS?

"Volodymyr Kornilov, director of the Ukrainian branch of the Institute of CIS Countries, told journalists in Kyiv on February 14 that he believes Moscow has a blacklist of Ukrainian politicians who cannot enter the Russian Federation, Interfax-Ukraine reported.

Kornilov was commenting on an incident last week in which Ukrainian lawmaker Petro Poroshenko, former secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, was declared persona non grata and barred from entering the Russian Federation at an airport in St. Petersburg. Russian Foreign Ministry officials said the move was a retaliatory measure against Ukraine's entry ban on a number of Russian politicians and political analysts in the past year or so. "