News

Shokin dismissed as procurator general

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KYIV – The Verkhovna Rada voted on March 29 to dismiss the highly unpopular Procurator General Viktor Shokin after months of pressure from reformers and American diplomats, who were disappointed with his resistance to and alleged sabotage of anti-corruption efforts. Mr. Shokin was dismissed on the eve of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s March 30 working visit to Washington, where the State Department was reported to have been pressuring him for the removal for half a year. Top diplomats wasted no time in expressing their relief to see Mr. Shokin go. European Union Ambassador to Ukraine Jan Tombinski, who was allegedly misrepresented by Mr. Shokin in a September incident, said the dismissal creates the opportunity for a new start. His sentiments were echoed by U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt.

Ukraine

Yegor Soboliev: Corruption in law enforcement is catastrophic

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KYIV – The Samopomich (Self-Reliance) party has emerged as among the most popular in Ukraine, even ranking first in some polls. And although its founder and head Andriy Sadovyi is among Ukraine’s most popular politicians (having served as Lviv mayor since 2006), a key reason for Samopomich’s success has been the passionate pursuit of reforms by Yegor Soboliev, the 39-year old deputy head of the party’s parliamentary faction. His occasional brawls in Parliament have drawn the television spotlight, but his biggest contribution to politics stems from his chairmanship of the Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on Corruption Prevention and Counteraction, which has been at the lead in lustration efforts that are being resisted by the political establishment entrenched from the Yanukovych administration, with the president’s backing, he alleges. For at least half a year, he’s led several drives to dismiss the highly unpopular Viktor Shokin as procurator general, collecting the necessary number of signatures to force the vote after the first list mysteriously disappeared. The Rada finally ousted Mr. Shokin in a March 29 vote.

Top News

Savchenko sentenced to 22 years’ imprisonment

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KYIV – Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian military pilot who has become the nation’s globally recognized symbol of resistance to Russian aggression, was found guilty on March 22 by a Russian court of participating in the murder of two Russian journalists and illegally crossing the Russian border. She was sentenced to 22 years imprisonment in a penal colony – a year short of the maximum sentence. Striking an especially cynical tone, the court fined Ms. Savchenko 30,000 rubles ($443) for violating the border. The United States and the European Union condemned the verdict and called for Ms. Savchenko’s immediate release, reiterating the widely accepted view that the criminal charges were fabricated by the Russian government as part of its information war against Ukraine. The conviction and sentencing “show a blatant disregard for the principles of justice and contravene Russia’s commitments under the Minsk agreements,” said U.S. State Department Spokesman John Kirby.

News

President’s choices shrink as political crises deepen

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KYIV – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko saw his options narrow this week as he seeks to resolve Ukraine’s deepening political crises, namely the war in the Donbas and the formation of a new coalition government. His position has gotten so limited that he is considering appointing political players once considered to be off limits for key posts. Donbas oligarchs Rinat Akhmetov and Yurii Boiko are now candidates for governing positions in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk. Also this week, Radical Party chief Oleh Liashko emerged as the president’s most viable partner in forming a new coalition after the Samopomich party announced strict demands for supporting a new prime minister. A populist known for his publicity stunts and provocations, Mr. Liashko reportedly wants to become the chair of Parliament.

News

Savchenko on hunger strike, drawing worldwide support

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KYIV – Imprisoned Ukrainian military pilot Nadiya Savchenko again drew international attention and support after declaring a hunger strike on March 3 when the judge in her trial denied her the opportunity to read her final statement. She reportedly refused food and water for six days, starting on March 4, before announcing on March 10 that she would begin drinking water again, relieving worldwide concern that she would die in a Russian jail. Yet she continued to refuse food, marking the seventh such hunger strike since her imprisonment in July 2014. Upon announcing her decision to accept water, Ms. Savchenko claimed victory in that her dry hunger strike had prompted the judge to move the verdict closer to March 21, as was announced at a March 9 hearing during which Ms. Savchenko declared her contempt for the court. “With my example, I want to demonstrate that the totalitarian regime in Russia can be destroyed!

News

Jaresko emerges as top candidate for prime minister

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KYIV – Chicago-native Natalie Jaresko, the current finance minister of Ukraine, is among the top candidates to succeed the embattled Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister, according to Kyiv insiders and recent news reports. She has already begun forming a Cabinet of Ministers consisting of technocrats, reported the rbc.ua news site on February 26, citing an anonymous source identified only as being “in the coalition.” President Petro Poroshenko has offered her the post already, the hromadske.tv news site reported on February 26, citing someone “familiar with the talks.”

The latest turn of the rumor mill ended without Ms. Jaresko being nominated as prime minister, and without Mr. Yatsenyuk’s resignation, which also was rumored. Yet she’s at the top of the president’s list, said Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kyiv political pundit who has intimate ties with the Presidential Administration

“The rumors reflect the truth, to a large extent. She is among the potential contenders,” said Mr. Fesenko, the head of the Penta Center for Applied Political Research. Speaking with The Ukrainian Weekly’s correspondent on March 1, he didn’t discount the rumor that the president had already offered her the post behind closed doors.

Culture/Arts

Crimean Tatar Jamala to represent Ukraine at Eurovision

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KYIV – Once again, Ukraine will make political waves at the annual Eurovision Song Contest. Yet this time around, a Crimean Tatar will represent Ukraine, as announced on February 21. Accomplished pop singer Jamala will get a unique chance to raise Europe’s awareness to the plight of her people in performing “1944,” a song that ties the current persecution by the Russian occupation to the genocide in which Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin deported most of the Crimean Tatar population to Uzbekistan. The Verkhovna Rada declared the 1944 forced deportation of Crimean Tatars a genocide on November 12, 2015, and designated May 18 as the Day of Remembrance of Crimean Tatar Genocide Victims. More than 180,000 Tatars, or about 84 percent of the population, was forcibly reported, according to Soviet records. The vast majority, or more than 82 percent, were resettled to Uzbekistan, while the remainder were mostly sent to Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and central Russia.

News

Coalition near collapse after failed no-confidence vote

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KYIV – Ukraine’s coalition government approached the brink of collapse after the Verkhovna Rada failed on February 16 to muster enough votes to dismiss the highly unpopular prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and his Cabinet of Ministers. The Samopomich and Batkivshchyna parties announced in the following days that they were exiting the coalition government, accusing national deputies of the biggest parties of abandoning the principles of the Euro-Maidan that reached its bloody conclusion nearly two years earlier to the date. “A union of power has become obvious between the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, the People’s Front (led by Mr. Yatsenyuk), and the fragments of the Party of Regions that are controlled by a series of oligarchs,” said a February 18 statement by the Samopomich party leadership. “Such actions delegitimize the government of Ukraine. They are an encroachment on the country’s order and they put a final end to the ‘European Ukraine’ parliamentary coalition.

News

Halychyna councils oppose self-governance for the Donbas

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KYIV – The Lviv Oblast Council and Ternopil City Council voted on January 27 to submit appeals to the Verkhovna Rada, expressing their opposition to the establishment of local self-governance for the occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Their appeals argue that approving the constitutional amendments – which besides conditions for decentralization would also set the foundation for the Donbas “specific procedures of local self-governance,” also commonly called “special status” – would bring Russian-backed terrorists to power in a legalized autonomous enclave that will be used by Moscow to further subvert independence. “For the defense of the interests of Ukraine and Ukrainians, we call upon you to take the historic decision of not voting, under any circumstance, for the constitutional amendments for the Donbas special status, or whatever you call it,” stated the appeal of the Lviv Oblast Council, as reported by the UNIAN news agency. “Beneath the beautiful veneer of words is hidden its true, cruel and Satanic essence hidden from society – to legalize the occupiers, whose boots are stomping upon the holy land of Ukraine.”

Their appeals join a growing chorus of pro-Western Ukrainians who oppose the establishment of Donbas local self-governance – widely considered to be de facto autonomy – which is being actively pursued by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at the behest of Western governments. They are led by French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who have urged Mr. Poroshenko to approve local self-governance as part of the Normandy format negotiations involving Russian President Vladimir Putin.

News

A resignation with ramifications

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KYIV – It came as no surprise that President Petro Poroshenko met with Aivaras Abromavicius within hours of his resignation on February 3 to convince him to remain as minister of economic development and trade. Mr. Abromavicius is merely the latest Western-backed reformer to go public with complaints about corruption in the government, but he stands out as the most prominent, given his success as an investment banker. And the president knows that if Mr. Abromavicius goes, his standing in the West suffers, analysts said. “A president with an approval rating in free fall can ill afford offending the Western leaders who provided the diplomatic and financial support to keep Ukraine alive over the past two years,” said Brian Mefford, a non-resident senior fellow at the Eurasia Center of the Atlantic Council who works as a consultant in Ukraine. The reaction from the West was immediate.