WARSAW - Poland's Senate speaker Bogdan Borusewicz said Monday that Russia had denied him entry for the funeral of outspoken opposition activist Boris Nemtsov, who was gunned down in central Moscow on Friday.
Russia's opposition supporters carry portraits of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov during a march in central Moscow on March 1, 2015
"I wanted to pay respect to the slain Boris Nemtsov and to all Russians who think like him. But I have just learnt Russian authorities will not allow me to attend the funeral in Moscow," said Borusewicz, a key communist-era dissident and founding member of Poland's anti-regime Solidarity movement.
"The denial of entry for Speaker Borusewicz is retaliation for the fact that Russian parliamentary speaker Valentina Matviyenko is subject to EU sanctions," Poland's foreign ministry spokesman Marcin Wojciechowski said on Twitter.
Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, also once a leading Solidarity opposition figure, said Monday the decision to refuse entry to "an icon of Poland's struggle for democracy" like Borusewicz was "difficult to understand and accept."
Komorowski told Polish media he would be represented in Moscow at Tuesday's funeral ceremonies by senior advisor Jan Litynski, and that Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Pawlik would represent the Polish government.
"Russia has lost a great man, a great democrat and friend of Poland," Litynski told AFP of Nemtsov, also confirming he would be attending the funeral.
Like Borusewicz, both Komorowski and Litynski were vocal opponents of Poland's Soviet-imposed communist regime before its peaceful demise in 1989.
Lithuania's Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius will attend Nemtsov's funeral, his spokesman told AFP on Monday while former foreign minister Sandra Kalniete will represent neighbouring Latvia.
All once under the Soviet thumb, the three countries are now members of both the EU and NATO, and have been among the most vocal critics of Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.