President fires chief of staff
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dismissed the chief of his administration, Andriy Bohdan, and replaced him with Andriy Yermak, an aide whose name has been linked to U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani. The presidential decrees on relieving Mr. Bohdan from his duties and appointing Mr. Yermak were signed on February 11 and placed on the presidential website. Evidence and testimony gathered during Mr. Trump’s recent impeachment hearing shows Mr. Giuliani met with Mr. Yermak to “strongly” urge an investigation Mr. Trump wanted of Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son’s ties to Ukrainian energy firm Burisma. Mr. Bohdan’s appointment to the post in May last year, after Mr. Zelenskyy won the presidential election, sparked controversy as Mr. Bohdan used to be a lawyer for powerful tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, who returned to Kyiv days ahead of Mr. Zelenskyy’s inauguration after two years of self-imposed exile in Geneva and Tel Aviv. Mr. Kolomoisky had left Ukraine to avoid criminal charges. Under the previous president, Petro Poroshenko, the government had nationalized PrivatBank, which Mr. Kolomoisky once co-owned, and accused him of stealing $5.5 billion at a time when the war-torn country was being propped up by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United States and the European Union. Many said at the time that Mr. Kolomoisky returned to influence President Zelenskyy’s policies via Mr. Bohdan. (RFE/RL)
Yermak: Room for compromise with Russia
The new head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office has signaled there is room for compromise in talks on ending the war with Russia-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country, a day after Moscow replaced a hardline point man on the issue with a Ukrainian-born official in the Kremlin. Andriy Yermak told reporters in Kyiv on February 12, a day after his appointment, that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s team will continue to work on stopping the war in eastern Ukraine, where some areas in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, known as the Donbas, have been under the militants’ control since April 2014. “There can certainly be compromises during the negotiations,” Mr. Yermak said. “But we have talked about this many times, and I also want to add that I am ready and will continue to do this: speak with all patriotic, competent, reasonable forces in this country.” Mr. Yermak’s appointment raised some eyebrows in Ukraine from those who fear he may soften Kyiv’s position toward Russia, especially amid the current thaw in relations that included major prisoner swaps late last year that Mr. Yermak was involved with in his role as an aide to Mr. Zelenskyy. Looking to allay those concerns, the 48-year-old former film producer and lawyer stressed at the news conference that Crimea, which was forcefully seized and annexed by Russia in March 2014, and the Donbas were “Ukrainian territories” and that elections in the areas controlled by the separatists scheduled for October “must be held under Ukrainian legislation.” He commented on the appointment of Dmitry Kozak, the deputy head of the Russian Presidential Administration, to handle relations with Kyiv, sidelining hard-liner Vladislav Surkov. “I have not spoken to Mr. Kozak since his appointment and my appointment,” Mr. Yermak said. “But regardless of who represents the Russian Federation in the negotiations in Minsk or in the Normandy format, the principles declared by President Zelenskyy are unchanged,” he added. (RFE/RL)
Kremlin’s new Ukraine negotiator
Veteran official Dmitry Kozak was appointed as Russia’s chief negotiator in relations with Kyiv and Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin announced on February 11. President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Mr. Kozak, deputy head of the Russian Presidential Administration, was now the most senior Kremlin official when it came to Ukraine. Mr. Kozak, 61, was born in what used to be Soviet Ukraine. He replaces Kremlin insider Vladislav Surkov, who had overseen Russia’s ties with Ukraine and other ex-Soviet countries since 2013. Mr. Peskov did not say whether Mr. Surkov, 55, would be leaving the Kremlin altogether but added that Mr. Kozak was now the Kremlin’s point man for Ukraine. Mr. Kozak is a former deputy prime minister. He was appointed deputy head of the Kremlin administration late last month. Mr. Kozak supervised Mr. Putin’s first re-election campaign in 2004, was responsible for preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, and served as the Kremlin’s principal person for ties with Moldova. Mr. Kozak is among Russian officials who were sanctioned by the West after Russia seized Crimea. (RFE/RL, with reporting by Reuters and AFP)
Armored vehicles significantly damaged
Ukraine’s military says 2,576 units of its weaponized armored vehicles and equipment were damaged between April 2014 and June 2016 in the combat zone of the two easternmost regions where a war with Russia-backed separatists still rages. Most of the losses – 2,185 units – were caused by enemy shelling, armed clashes and landmine explosions, the Ukrainian-based Defense Express magazine reported on February 11, citing data received from the Defense Ministry. Exactly 1,201 infantry fighting vehicles and 440 tanks were damaged during this period, the most among the various armored vehicles. According to the cited data, the most common cause of damage was fire from rocket-launcher and artillery systems, as well as mortars. Forty-five percent of the total damage, or 1,159 armored vehicles, were damaged in July-September 2014. This occurred around the time when Russia allegedly engaged in systematic cross-border shelling of Ukrainian positions, something which Moscow denies. Russia followed up on the purported shelling from its side of the border with regular forces who crossed into Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions in late summer, culminating in the disastrous battle of Ilovaisk in which Ukrainian forces found themselves surrounded. A total of 2,410 armored vehicles, including 475 tanks, were damaged in the first 365 days of the war. In 2015, Ukraine lost 410 armored vehicles, including many during the battle for Donetsk airport and near Debaltseve in the Donetsk region, a key rail-transportation hub that Kyiv eventually lost to combined Russian-separatist forces. Twenty-six armored vehicles, consisting of either infantry fighting vehicles or armored personnel carriers, were damaged the following year. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by Defense Express and Ukrainian Military Pages)
Police major, ex-convict wanted in car arson
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office in Lviv suspects an underworld criminal and a police major of collusion in the arson of a vehicle belonging to RFE/RL correspondent Halyna Tereshchuk. Iryna Didenko, the lead prosecutor of the Lviv region, signed the charge sheets for the two suspects on February 11. Accused of ordering the torching of the journalist’s car is a 48-year-old former convict, who is known in the criminal world for black-market schemes and stealing fuel at the Lviv railway. Allegedly colluding with him was a 43-year-old National Police major in the Lviv region, who sought the arsonist and paid him for the crime, according to Didenko. The suspects are on a nationwide wanted list. Both would be prosecuted for intentional destruction of or damage to property, which carries a prison sentence of six to 15 years. The journalist, who has worked for RFE/RL since 2000, said at the time of the arson on January 30 that she suspected the attack was linked to her professional activities. Police on February 6 detained a 19-year-old male in Odesa for allegedly setting the reporter’s car on fire. If found guilty, he faces three to 10 years in prison. The case has been jointly investigated by prosecutors and investigators from the Security Service (SBU). (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Crimean Tatar TV channel faces closure
Ukraine’s first and only television channel in the Crimean Tatar language says it is on the brink of shutting down operations due to lack of government funding. ATR hasn’t received $2 million that the government allocated for the channel in this year’s state budget, a statement by the channel said on February 10. The channel said it received $610,000 on its account on December 28, 2019, but couldn’t access the money because banks were closed that day so it had to return the money, as required by law. A portion of the $2 million that was allocated this year was transferred to ATR’s account, but the channel said the state treasury had blocked access to it. In response, ATR has launched a fund-raising campaign and is broadcasting from an empty studio without presenters and guests. ATR is a part of a media holding that is majority-owned by Lenur Islyamov and initially stopped broadcasting in Crimea after the occupying Russian authorities refused to issue a broadcasting license after annexing the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014. It resumed broadcasting on June 17, 2015, in Kyiv via satellite throughout Ukraine, including in Crimea, supported mostly with government money. Mr. Islyamov said in a statement that without the channel, Ukraine will never get back Crimea. “We know who our focus group is. We know it is the people who support us, those people who know about us, and those who want to return to Crimea with us,” he said. “Without us, we won’t be able to return to Crimea. We are the bridge that is being laid to Crimea.” Due to the financial shortfall, ATR has slashed 90 percent of its own programming, dismissed 45 percent of its staff, reduced news broadcasts and stopped broadcasting live, Mr. Islyamov said. In addition to ATR, a children’s TV channel and a radio channel are part of the holding. Separately in January, Ukraine’s public broadcaster shut down international broadcasting and closed its Crimean Tatar-, Arabic- and English-language departments. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Hungarian foreign minister visits Kyiv
Hungarian Foreign Affairs Minister Péter Szijjártó says his country would like improve relations with Ukraine amid a dispute over a controversial language law. The remarks came on February 7 during a visit to Kyiv by Mr. Szijjártó, his first trip to Hungary’s eastern neighbor since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected last year. “The Hungarian government is interested in renewing good neighborly relations with Ukraine,” Mr. Szijjártó said during a news conference with Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Dmytro Kuleba. Kyiv in 2017 passed a law that emphasizes the instruction of Ukrainian in publicly funded schools and curtails the teaching of Russian and other minority languages, such as Romanian and Hungarian. The Council of Europe’s constitutional experts have criticized the language legislation and previous regulations regarding educational institutions signed into law by the country’s previous president, Petro Poroshenko. Hungary, in particular, opposes the law, saying it restricts the right of Ukraine’s ethnic Hungarian minority of approximately 125,000 people to be educated in their native language. Kyiv maintains the legislation is designed to ensure that all Ukrainian citizens can speak the state’s official language, and it denies the law is discriminatory. Hungarians are the largest minority group in Transcarpathia, a western Ukrainian region that was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. “We want the Hungarians who live in Transcarpathia to have the opportunity to preserve their native language,” Mr. Szijjártó said. He added that he “made a couple of suggestions” in a meeting with Ukraine’s education minister to resolve the situation and urged Kyiv to consider them. Mr. Kuleba said Ukraine wants Transcarpathia to become “a success story, thanks to the joint efforts of Ukraine and Hungary.” Hungary, a member of NATO and the European Union, has threatened to stymie Ukraine’s aspirations of joining the organizations until matters dividing the countries are resolved. (RFE/RL, with reporting by AFP and Interfax)