A FORMER MEP living near Pershore is one of only nine Britons on Vladimir Putin’s visa blacklist.

Edward McMillan-Scott is one of a number of people banned from entering the country.

As the last and longest-serving European Parliament vice president from 2002 to 2014, Mr McMillan-Scott said he was picked out for his work on democratic and human rights reform in Russia.

Other names on the list include former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and former cabinet minister Malcolm Rifkind.

Mr McMillan-Scott's great grandfather was the first officer to be awarded the Victoria Cross fighting the Russians at the Battle of the River Alma in 1854 in Crimea.

It was Worcestershire's only VC and was won when Edward Derrington Bell captured a Russian field gun by threatening its driver with a pistol.

He said: "It was a badge of honour then, and today’s crisis in Ukraine shows Putin to the world as a tyrant, just as Czar Nicholas was in his attack on the Crimea in 1854."

Mr McMillan-Scott said that he was greatly encouraged today by "the solidarity being offered by the UK, but especially the European Union towards Ukraine."

Another of Mr McMillan-Scott’s ancestors was Colonel T.E. Lawrence “of Arabia”, who refused the VC when offered it for his leadership of the Arab Revolt against the Turks in the First World War.