The Russian writer who was barred from entering the country on Thursday said the decision to turn him back from the border is the result of a misunderstanding.

“They told me: ‘Sorry, we cannot let you through’. They said this and gave me a paper which said that I am a threat to international security. I laughed it off,” Zakhar Pilepin said in an interview with RTRS, the public broadcaster in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated part, Republika Srpska (RS).

Yevgeny Nikolayevich Prilepin, better known as Zakhar Prilepin, was supposed to attend an event in Banja Luka on Friday but was turned away by Bosnia’s border police a day before.

Prilepin fought on the Russian side during the war in Ukraine and took part in the conflict in Chechnya in the 1990’s.

He did not hide his past engagement in the conflicts and said that this may have been the reason for the ban.

“You should ask the people who made such a decision, maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was a soldier, but they know this better,” he said.

“I never had this problem before. I travelled to numerous countries, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy… Ukraine did request a ban on my entry, but nobody ever reacted to this,” he said.

“Politics come and go, ,they change, but books stay for good. With this, they have in some way made a promotion for us, Russian writers, and I thank them for that,” Prilepin said of the ban.