Ukraine: Officials confirm that Alina Pash entered Crimea via land border in 2015 in accordance with the law

Update at 14:20 GMT on February 14: Ukraine’s broadcaster now says it has received information throwing the authenticity of Alina’s documents into question. Please see our new post here for the latest. Our original post remains below.

After an eventful Vidbir, Alina Pash emerged as Ukraine’s Eurovision 2022 representative. However, her appointment was met with a lot of questions surrounding her 2015 visit to Crimea. On Sunday Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne has published a set of documents from the country’s border control service. They confirm that Alina Pash entered Crimea through a Ukrainian land border in accordance to local rules.

Alina Pash and Crimea: What is happening? 

In the weeks before the selection show, commenters on social media wrote that Alina Pash had previously visited Crimea via a flight from Moscow, thus breaking one of the selection’s rules.

This rumour emerged after a 2019 interview Alina had with Kateryna Osadcha’s programme Svitske zhittya. There, the songstress mentioned that she visited in Crimea in 2015. Specifically, she used the word “to fly” when she described her trip to the peninsula. 

In an interview to Timur Miroshnychenko last week, Alina stated that she did in fact not fly to into Crimea. Instead, she said that she went there by bus. She noted that the fragment with Kateryna Osadcha was taken out of context. She added that she did not go to Crimea for a performance but for a private affair. Suspilne subsequently received physical proof from Alina that she indeed passed the land border. 

Ukrainian border control registered her twice at a land border checkpoint

Suspilne published a set of documents proving that Alina Pash indeed entered Crimea by land border and therefore did not break Ukrainian law or any Vidbir selection rules. On two occassions in August 2015, she was registered to have passed through the Ukrainian state land border checkpoint Chaplynka in the Kherson Oblast of Ukraine. 

The document of the Ukrainian border control services reads as follows: 

“Within the power granted by the Administration of the State Border Service of Ukraine, based on the results of your request, we inform you that according to the data of the State Border Service, P [censored], A [censored] transited the border of Ukraine in 2015 through the checkpoint Chaplynka. 

11 August 2015, citizen P [censored], A [censored] I [censored] carried out an exit from the state border of Ukraine through the checkpoint Chaplynka.

13 August 2015, citizen P [censored], A [censored] I [censored] carried out an entrance on the state border of Ukraine through the checkpoint Chaplynka.”

 

 

 

 

 

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Een bericht gedeeld door Євробачення (@suspilne.eurovision)