Pro-Kremlin activists say they're barred from entering Germany
PHOTO CAPTION: Illustrative photo — German police officers stand guard are seen in Kehl, Germany, Sept. 16, 2024. (Joachim Herrmann/Reuters)
By Sarah Marsh and Maria Tsvetkova
BERLIN/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two pro-Russian activists said that German authorities have barred them from re-entering the country where they had been operating when a Reuters investigation last year revealed their ties to the Kremlin.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Elena Kolbasnikova and her romantic partner Max Schlund have been organising pro-Kremlin rallies in Germany to urge Berlin to abandon its military support to Kyiv.
The Reuters investigation, published last year, identified them as among key individuals pushing a pro-Moscow stance in Germany and revealed that they had received financial help from a Russian government agency.
The couple's home near Cologne, north-west Germany, was raided last August by German prosecutors. Earlier, Reuters reported that the couple used funds they had collected from supporters in Germany to buy walkie-talkie radios, headphones and telephones for a Russian army division fighting in Ukraine.
This June, they announced via their lawyer that they had left Germany and moved to Russia, saying they were forced out by a campaign of discrimination against Russians.
In a video posted on the Telegram messaging service on Tuesday, Kolbasnikova said the couple's lawyer had received a letter from the Cologne city administration, saying they were barred from entering Germany for 20 years.
The letter said the grounds for the decision were that Kolbasnikova and Schlund were a threat to Germany's security, Kolbasnikova said in the video.
The couple posted on Telegram parts of a document in German, which they said was the Cologne city administration's letter, setting out the terms of the ban.
The couple's lawyer in Germany, Markus Beisicht, said in a statement sent to Reuters that the ban on entering Germany was part of a campaign of "Russophobia" against them.
A representative of the Cologne prosecutor's office declined to comment. An official in the Cologne city administration said they had no immediate comment.
Kolbasnikova was born in Ukraine but was granted Russian citizenship last year. Schlund is Russian. Both had moved to Germany more than a decade ago.
(Additional reporting by Mari Saito; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by David Gregorio)
