Eurovision organizers threaten Ukraine over ban on Russian entry:
By RFE/RL
Ukraine could lose the right to participate in future renditions of the Eurovision Song Contest if it bars Russia's entry in this year's competition from entering Ukraine to participate, the head of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has said.
In a letter to Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman on March 31, EBU head Ingrid Deltenre noted that barring a performer from another country is an unprecedented action.
She added that "several" unspecified countries have said they would consider boycotting the competition in Ukraine if Kyiv insists on barring Russia's entry.
Russia selected singer Yulia Samoilova as its contestant earlier this month. But Ukraine said she had been barred from entering the country because she violated Ukrainian law by performing in Crimea in 2015.
Russia illegally annexed the Ukrainian region in 2014.
Russia slammed Kyiv's ban, saying Ukraine had "a regime infected with Russophobic paranoia."
On March 24, Russia rejected a compromise offered by the EBU under which Samoilova would be allowed to compete via satellite link.
Ukraine won the right to host the event, the final of which is set for May 13, by winning last year with its entry, a song by Crimean Tatar performer Jamala about the 1944 deportation of Crimean Tatars by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. (w/DW)
Ukrainian tobacco giant suspected of helping fund separatists:
Ukraine's Tedis Ukraine tobacco giant has been accused of tax evasion and financing Russia-backed separatists that control parts of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko told journalists in Kyiv on March 31 that some 1,000 law enforcement officers are conducting about 100 searches at the firm's offices in Kyiv, Odesa, and Dnipro.
Tedis Ukraine is suspected of tax evasion and of large-scale illegal money transfers to Russia -- some of which might have been used to support the Russia-backed separatists, Avakov and Lutsenko said.
The officials said Tedis Tobacco's actual owner is Russian citizen Igor Kesayev, who was officially banned by Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council from transferring finances abroad.
Despite the ban, the company transferred at least 2.5 billion hryvnyas ($91.7 million) to Russia in 2015-17, Lutsenko charged.
Lutsenko also said that Tedis Ukraine was led by people linked to the Degtyaryov Armaments Factory -- a Russian firearms-producing company in Vladimir Oblast that is believed to provide the separatists with weapons.
The offices of the Antimonopoly Committee in Kyiv are being searched as well, as it is suspected of assisting Tedis Ukraine to evade taxes and carry out other financial misdeeds.
Tedis Ukraine is a monopoly company controlling Ukraine's tobacco-distribution business. (UNIAN, Lb.ua)