Further scandal broke this morning amongst the Eurovision world following reports that Bulgaria’s 2017 entrant Kristian Kostov had previously entered Crimea in 2014, with accusations of a breach of law emerging. The Border Service of Ukraine has since spoken out regarding the situation.

In this morning’s reports, it was revealed that Kristian Kostov, Bulgaria’s representative at Eurovision 2017, had previously visited Crimea back in June 2014 to perform at the Artek International Children’s Centre.

Discussion broke out following this revelation, with talk rising as to whether any sanctions would be made against the singer himself, much like the chosen 2017 Russian participant Julia Samoylova who went on to receive a 3 year ban after entering Crimea back in June 2015, a move which was a breach of Ukrainian law.

Were laws officially broken?

Following today’s revelation, a spokesperson of the Border Service of Ukraine spoke of the situation surrounding Bulgaria, revealing that no sanctions would be taken against the singer as, in short, no law had been broken.

Speaking to Online.ua, a Ukrainian Border Services spokesperson discussed 3 main points regarding the Bulgarian representative.

Firstly they spoke of the fact that by the time Kostov had visited Ukraine, the State Border Services had received no information from their sources regarding the singer’s visit to Crimea, therefore were not aware of the situation.

Despite this, the spokesperson went on to speak of 2 points as to why this would not affect Kostov’s participation in the competition.

According to media, Kostov was only 14 years of age at the time of his visit to Crimea and would therefore count as a minor, therefore the decision to enter was not decided by the young artist himself but instead by an accompanying adult.

Regardless of this, the spokesperson went on to reveal that the legal barrios regarding entering Crimea were introduced towards the end of 2014. As of the time of the visit, the law had not been introduced and therefore means that no law was breached at the time of Kostov’s visit.

Bulgaria at Eurovision 2017

Bulgaria is all set and ready to compete in tonight’s second semi-final of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest at the International Exhibition Centre in Kyiv.

Kostov will perform 15th position this evening with his song Beautiful mess, hoping to take Bulgaria to the final of the contest on the 13 May.