{"id":68984,"date":"2026-05-13T07:20:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T07:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/68984\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T07:20:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T07:20:39","slug":"european-parliament-cancels-trip-to-ukraine-after-kyiv-bristles-at-far-right-mep-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/68984\/","title":{"rendered":"European Parliament cancels trip to Ukraine after Kyiv bristles at far-right MEP \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Neuhoff told POLITICO that his trip had been called off due to Ukraine\u2019s objections. He said Kyiv had first notified the office of Parliament President Roberta Metsola of their concerns and their intention to deny him entry, with Metsola&#8217;s office then relaying the information to the SEDE secretary, who in turn informed him.<\/p>\n<p>The German MEP traveled to Sochi, Russia last month. He has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.europarl.europa.eu\/doceo\/document\/CRE-10-2025-11-26-INT-2017049423166_DE.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">previously argued<\/a> that any peace plan between Moscow and Kyiv should address \u201cthe root causes that led to the Russian invasion\u201d and that Ukraine should be prevented from joining NATO \u2014 positions widely seen as mirroring Kremlin talking points.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement to POLITICO clarifying his political position, Neuhoff stressed that he is &#8220;strictly neutral&#8221; rather than pro-Russia or pro-Ukraine. But he also criticized the EU\u2019s approach of turning Ukraine into a \u201csteel porcupine\u201d as a \u201cgrave strategic error\u201d that was harming the bloc\u2019s relations with Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter to Metsola, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/03\/MEP-NEUHOFF-Letter-to-EP-President-METSOLA-cl.clean_.pdf\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/03\/MEP-NEUHOFF-Letter-to-EP-President-METSOLA-cl.clean_.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">obtained by POLITICO<\/a>, Neuhoff denied having any ties to Moscow and urged the Parliament president to file a complaint with Kyiv over their threat to refuse him entry. He also defended his decision not to withdraw from the delegation, which left it unable to go ahead with the visit.<\/p>\n<p>He told POLITICO that the Ukrainian authorities had refused \u201cto produce the evidence they claim to possess\u201d proving he is a \u201csecurity risk&#8221; with links to the Kremlin, or that he has ever visited Donbas, the Russia-occupied region in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe allegations that I maintain political relations with the Russian Federation and that I have been illegally present in the Donbas are untrue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Ukraine\u2019s interior ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>CORRECTION: This article has been updated to clarify Hans Neuhoff traveled once to Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neuhoff told POLITICO that his trip had been called off due to Ukraine\u2019s objections. He said Kyiv had&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[2700,1430,388,441,329,932,330,347],"class_list":{"0":"post-68984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-roberta-metsola","8":"tag-kremlin","9":"tag-meps","10":"tag-parliament","11":"tag-roberta-metsola","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-security","14":"tag-ukraine","15":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116566060047749657","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}