The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has recently sent the note to Israel on the defense of the rights of the citizens of Ukraine, as Ukrinform reported citing spokeswoman of the ministry Kateryna Zelenko.

Zelenko reminded that on February 15, at Boryspil Airport, 35 Israeli citizens were banned from the entry to the territory of Ukraine due to the absence of enough amount of funds or non-confirmation of the purpose of the visits. In the response, Israel delayed the whole plane from Ukraine with 140 with passengers for a few hours.

Foreign Ministry representative emphasized that in the future, the Ukrainian side will estimate the scale and nature of the violation of the rights of the Ukrainians abroad and preparedness of the governments of the foreign countries to fight against the cases of the violation of the legislation during the employment of the foreign citizens, in this case, Ukrainians.

“In the case, if the foreign government do not treat the fight against illegal employment of the Ukrainians in the proper way, if the rights of the Ukrainian tourists and travelers are systematically violated, we are going to reconsider the terms of the visits of the citizens, including the feasibility of the preservation of the visa-free regime for the citizens of countries, where the rights of our citizens are systematically violated,” Zelenko noted.

Earlier, we reported that the number of entry bans for Israeli citizens in Ukraine has grown up lately. Oleg Slobodyan, the assistant head of the State Border Guard of Ukraine, said this in his commentary for 112.ua news agency.

Slobodyan added that since the beginning of the year, the number of such cases has already reached 96. 'It's not much because, over the same period of time, more than 500 Ukrainians were banned from entering Israel. One cannot really say there's any sort of bias against the Israeli citizens. There's no way that symmetrical response would take place,' the official stressed.

He added that the border control in Ukraine was toughened because of the complicated military and political situation. "As for the citizens of Israel, it is about the growing number of people who cannot confirm the goal of their visit', Slobodyan said.

February 19, Ukraine's state border guards did not let the group of tourists from Israel into Ukraine. A group of visitors and a guide consisted of more than 30 people, Ynet wrote. The outlet reported that after four hours of sorting it out, the law enforcers let most of the tourists pass. However, 17 people, including the guide were deported back to Israel.