DODIK TO RIA NOVOSTI: MICHAEL MARTENS DECLARED PERSONA NON GRATA

MOSCOW, SEPTEMBER 29 /SRNA/ — German journalist Michael Martens, who asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy how Europeans could help Ukraine “kill more Russians”, has been declared persona non grata in Republika Srpska, President Milorad Dodik told RIA Novosti.

Dodik said in August that Martens could be banned from entering Republika Srpska. “He is persona non grata in Republika Srpska, and he is perfectly aware of that. If he commits any provocation, we will take measures; he is definitely unwelcome,” Dodik told RIA Novosti. Martens, a journalist of the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, asked Zelenskyy the question on August 8 at a joint press conference in Belgrade with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić. In response, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that calls for the extermination of people on the basis of ethnicity were unacceptable and criminal. She added that Martens’ grandfather had been a high-ranking Nazi officer who served in the Wehrmacht High Command.