Russia says it won’t broadcast Eurovision Song Contest

MOSCOW – Russia’s Channel One says it will not broadcast the Eurovision Song Contest in Russia after Ukraine, which hosts the contest this year, has barred the Russian entrant from travelling to the country.

Ukraine’s security services banned singer Yulia Samoylova from entering Ukraine because she had toured in Crimea after Russia’s 2014 annexation of that peninsula from Ukraine.

State-owned Channel Once, which is responsible for broadcasting the intensely popular TV song contest in Russia, said in a statement Thursday that it made the decision not to show the contest after it was told by the European Broadcasting Union that it had failed to settle the dispute with Ukraine.

The EBU had suggested that Samoylova can perform live from Russia but Channel One on Thursday dismissed that idea.