Zelenskyy denies reports of quid pro quo
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has denied in an interview with several magazines that there had been a quid-pro-quo deal with U.S. President Donald Trump to investigate the latter’s political rival, ex-Vice-President Joe Biden, and his son Hunter. “I definitely did not speak with President Trump in such a way, like, ‘you give me this, I give you that,’ “ Mr. Zelenskyy said in an interview with Time magazine, Germany’s Der Spiegel, France’s Le Monde, and Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza on December 2. Mr. Trump is accused of pressuring the Ukrainian president during a July 25 call to investigate the Bidens for corruption. During the call, President Trump, a Republican, asked his Ukrainian counterpart to look into 2020 Democratic front-runner and former Vice-President Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, who had been a hired board member of a controversial Ukrainian energy company. While asking for the “favor,” according to a rough transcript of the call made public, Mr. Trump was withholding some $400 million in military aid to Kyiv. Mr. Trump has accused Mr. Biden – who oversaw Ukraine policy during the administration of former President Barack Obama – of pressuring Kyiv to fire its prosecutor general in order to halt an investigation into the Burisma gas company, on whose board Hunter Biden used to serve. The U.S. officials who have testified so far in the impeachment probe have rejected that theory. Mr. Trump tweeted his reaction to Mr. Zelenskyy’s interview with the magazine. “Breaking News: The President of Ukraine has just again announced that President Trump has done nothing wrong with respect to Ukraine and our interactions or calls,” he tweeted. “If the Radical Left Democrats were sane, which they are not, it would be case over!” Mr. Zelenskyy said in the interview: “I do not want Ukraine to be a piece on the chessboard of the great powers.” (RFE/RL, with reporting by DPA)
Dutch say Moscow let suspect flee
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM) has accused Russia of allowing a suspect to evade its investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) by not arresting him and letting him return to separatist-held territory in eastern Ukraine. Moscow “willingly allowed“ the suspect, Ukrainian national Volodymyr Tsemakh, to leave Russia “and refused to execute” a Dutch extradition request, the OM said in a December 2 news release. By doing so, the OM said Moscow acted in contravention of the European Convention on Extradition to which Russia is a party as a member of the Council of Europe, the continent’s top human rights body. “The Russian Federation does not extradite its own citizens, but since Mr. Tsemakh is a Ukrainian citizen, there were not impediments for his extradition,” the OM said. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on December 3 that the Kremlin had “no relation” to the case and thus, “I can’t say anything here.” On September 7, Ukraine handed over Mr. Tsemakh to Russian authorities as part of a prisoner exchange involving 70 captives. He was the former commander of an air-defense unit of the Russia-backed forces fighting in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine at the time of the downing of MH17. All 298 people aboard the Boeing 777 passenger jet were killed when a sophisticated Russian-made missile struck it on July 17, 2014, a Dutch-led investigative team has concluded. While Mr. Tsemakh’s exact role in the attack remains unclear, he boasted to a separatist news agency in a 2015 video report about how he helped hide the Buk missile system that was transported to and from Ukraine by a Russian anti-aircraft missile brigade and which was used to shoot down the airliner. A Ukrainian special-forces team apprehended Mr. Tsemakh on June 27 at his home in the part of the Donetsk region that Kyiv doesn’t control. Before Mr. Tsemakh’s release to Russia, Dutch prosecutors had questioned him in Kyiv and asked Moscow to arrest Mr. Tsemakh on the grounds that he was a possible flight risk. Later in September, according to the OM, Russia said it was considering the extradition request. However, on November 19, the OM received notification from the Russian authorities that Mr. Tsemakh’s whereabouts were unknown, so the extradition request couldn’t be fulfilled. His daughter, Maria Levchenko-Tsemakh, said in September that her father had returned to territory in eastern Ukraine that is controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, according to an interview she gave to Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with Voice of America. The Netherlands on March 9 is scheduled to go ahead with prosecuting four MH17 suspects in absentia. A trial will be held for Russian citizens Igor Girkin, Oleg Pulatov, Sergei Dubinsky and Ukrainian national Leonid Kharchenko. All four are believed to be residing in Russia. (RFE/RL)
Two Ukrainian soldiers killed in Donbas
Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed during a combat mission in the eastern Donetsk region on December 1, the military said in a Facebook post. They died from wounds inflicted by “unknown explosive devices” while defending the rear of the front line from a penetrating “sabotage and reconnaissance group.” Their deaths followed a November casualty report by the Ukrainian military, which stated that six soldiers, including a colonel, were killed last month. More than 13,000 people have been killed in the Donbas war, according to United Nations figures. Four-way talks between France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine are planned for December 9 to end the conflict, which is in its sixth year. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Journalist attacked for third time
A Ukrainian journalist in the southern port city of Mykolayiv on November 30 was hospitalized after a lone assailant sprayed a liquid substance into his eyes and hit him several times in the face and head while he was returning home. Oleksandr Vlashchenko works for Novosti N, a local media outlet in the city of 480,000 people located some 460 kilometers south of Kyiv. During the assault, the unknown assailant didn’t take the journalist’s camera, several mobile phones, or money he had on his person. Police are investigating the incident and have classified it preliminarily as intentional light bodily harm, which carries a punishment of up to one year in correctional labor. Mr. Vlashchenko was diagnosed with a concussion and had injuries to his lower lip. It was the third assault on the journalist since 2012, Novosti N Editor in Chief Anton Onofriychuk told the Kyiv Post. Five years ago, a group of unknown people kidnapped him while covering his head with a bag, drove him to the outskirts of the city, and threatened to kill him. He was eventually released. In 2012, Mr. Vlashchenko was shot in the head with an air gun. The pellet remains lodged in his head. None of the cases were solved. Mr. Onofriychuk said Mr. Vlashchenko writes about corruption in the Mykolayiv City Council and also covers “soft” issues like municipal news and art shows. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, based on reporting by the Kyiv Post and Novosti N)
Lawmaker’s 3-year-old son is killed
Ukrainian police have detained two men suspected of involvement in the shooting death of the 3-year-old son of a regional Ukrainian lawmaker and businessman. The father, Kyiv regional council lawmaker Vyacheslav Sobolyev, was with his family leaving a restaurant he owns when an unknown assailant approached the Range Rover he was driving and fired at the moving car. The child was shot inside the vehicle and died in an ambulance en route to a hospital, police said. Kyiv police chief Andriy Kryshchenko said at a news briefing in Kyiv on December 2 that two unnamed suspects, “young men aged 18 and 19,” were detained. Investigators say they have also found the weapons believed to have been used in the shooting. “Our specialists, our investigators and operatives, have found the weapons with which this murder was committed,” Ukrainian National Police chief Ihor Klymenko told the briefing .Mr. Sobolyev, a businessman from the Donetsk region town of Yenakiyeve, the hometown of former President Viktor Yanukovych, has been investigated in relation to financing terrorism in eastern Ukraine, where an armed conflict with Moscow-backed separatists has existed since April 2014. Citing court documents, investigative journalism group Slidstvo.info reported that the company and others to which Mr. Sobolyev had a direct relationship were allegedly used through January 2017 to legalize proceeds from business dealings in territories that Kyiv doesn’t control in the easternmost regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Another company mentioned in court documents is a supermarket chain that Mr. Sobolyev established in 1997 but then sold in 2007. Mr. Sobolyev was elected to the Kyiv Oblast Council in 2015 as part of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc. Mr. Sobolyev was previously the deputy head of state-run oil-and-gas conglomerate Naftogaz and a deputy mayor of Donetsk. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by TSN, Censor, Slidstvo, UNIAN, Ukrayinska Pravda, and Interfax)
Lviv mayor to appeal bail ruling
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court on November 27 set bail at $44,000 for Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi, who is accused of abusing his office in a case involving construction of an industrial park, dispossessing land and causing nearly $4 million in damages to the state. If found guilty of abuse of office, he could be imprisoned for up to six years. Mr. Sadovyi has five days to post bail and said he will appeal the ruling. Prosecutors, who had asked for the bail amount to be nearly 50 times more, said they’ll also appeal. The case originates from 2015, when Dutch developer CTP won rights from the city to build an industrial park on 23 hectares of land located on the outskirts of Lviv. Mr. Sadovyi said Lviv, western Ukraine’s largest city, with a population of approximately 800,000 people, received the equivalent today of $2.25 million for the land. However, the mayor said from the outset there was resistance toward the project from the state government and prosecutor’s office. Prosecutors allege that the land allotted for the project belonged to a neighboring village, not the city, and was zoned as agricultural, not industrial. They allege that Mr. Sadovyi, along with several city-council members, misappropriated the land in Lviv’s favor although the city in 2017 signed a memorandum with the village to resolve the land dispute. “The charges are pointless, the [city] budget received 52 million hrv, what are the losses of 92 million hrv? The budget was filled, taxes are being paid. Investments will be attracted,” Mr. Sadovyi said in Kyiv after the bail hearing. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
NBU says Kolomoisky creates chaos
Ukraine’s central bank has accused tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky of organizing an attack on it and spreading “lies” in the media to “create chaos” at the institution. The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) said in a November 27 statement that it had asked law enforcement to help prevent possible “illegal actions” by the oligarch toward its employees. “A coordinated attack targeting the National Bank has been under way for several weeks in the form of spreading ordered speculation and lies in media, rallies in front of the NBU building by people who were paid to attend, and even an attempted forced entrance to the NBU by paid individuals,” the bank said in a statement, adding that “this pressure on the National Bank is being imposed by the oligarch and former owner of PrivatBank, Ihor Kolomoisky, who owes $5.5 billion that was funneled out of PrivatBank.” PrivatBank was nationalized against Mr. Kolomoisky’s will in 2016 as part of an International Monetary Fund (IMF)-backed clean-up of the country’s financial system. According to the NBU, rallies in front of its central Kyiv building were attended by workers of Kolomoisky-owned companies and organizations, “proving” that Mr. Kolomoisky was behind those rallies. The statement says that the main goals of the campaign against the NBU are to discredit the bank and change its leadership to be able to influence the NBU’s future. The statement added that Mr. Kolomoisky hopes the actions will help him avoid liability and the need to return to the state the funds withdrawn from PrivatBank, as well as to meddle into Ukraine’s cooperation with international financial institutions to influence their opinions regarding PrivatBank’s nationalization. (RFE/RL)