It’s official: Zelensky declared winner
Ukraine’s Central Election Commission has formally declared Volodymyr Zelensky the winner of the country’s presidential election, releasing final results from the April 21 runoff vote. Commission Chairwoman Tetyana Slipachuk announced on April 30 that Mr. Zelensky received 13,541,528 votes, more than 73 percent, while incumbent President Petro Poroshenko received 4,522,450, less than 25 percent. The numbers were in line with the unofficial figures released shortly after the runoff between Mr. Zelensky, a 41-year-old comedian with no political experience, and Mr. Poroshenko, 53, who is close to the end of a five-year term. The turnout was 61.37 percent, Ms. Slipachuk said, adding that the commission had not received any major complaints that could put the results of the election in doubt. The official results of the runoff were based on the protocol signed by 15 members of the commission – one member was absent at the session – and official representatives of the contenders. Mr. Zelensky is expected to be inaugurated in early June. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by UNIAN and Gordon)
Putin fast-tracks Russian passports
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to fast-track passports and citizenship for people in Ukraine and Soviet-era deportees. The order, published on the Kremlin’s website on May 1, followed Mr. Putin’s decree last week that made it easier for thousands of people living in war-torn eastern Ukraine to obtain Russian passports – an announcement that was mocked by Ukraine’s new president. The new order makes it easier not only for Ukrainian citizens and children to get Russian passports, but also certain stateless persons who lived in Crimea but moved away prior to Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Black Sea peninsula. Also eligible for Russian passports are foreigners who are descendants or relatives of Soviet-era deportees from Crimea, including Crimean Tatars. Many were deported to Uzbekistan on the orders of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in 1944. (RFE/RL)
Zelensky to Putin: ‘Don’t waste your time’
Ukrainian President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky has told Moscow “not to waste time trying to lure Ukrainian citizens with Russian passports,” after Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow could ease the process of granting Russian citizenship to Ukrainians. Ukrainians understand that Russian citizenship means “the right to be arrested for peaceful protests,” and “the right not to have free and competitive elections,” Mr. Zelensky wrote in a Facebook post on April 27. “It’s the right to basically forget all rights and freedoms,” he wrote. “Ukraine’s difference, in particular, is in the fact that we, Ukrainians, have freedom of speech in our country, free media and Internet,” Mr. Zelensky wrote. He went on to say that “Ukrainians are free people in a free country” and that they “should not be talked to in the language of threats and military and economic pressure.” However, Mr. Zelensky pointed out that he was ready for negotiations with Russia. He said that “the real normalization will only take place after de-occupation of both Donbas and Crimea.” Shortly after Putin’s decree was published on the Kremlin website on April 24, Ukraine’s foreign affairs minister called it “aggression and interference” in Kyiv’s affairs. Mr. Zelensky issued a statement on April 24 condemning Russia as an “occupying state” and an “aggressor country that is waging war against Ukraine.” He called for “increased diplomatic and sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation.” (RFE/RL)
U.S. condemns Putin’s passport move
The U.S. State Department condemned an order by Russian President Vladimir Putin to simplify the procedure for people living in parts of eastern Ukraine held by Russia-backed separatists to obtain Russian citizenship. Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus stated on April 24: “The United States condemns today’s decision by President Putin to provide expedited Russian citizenship to Ukrainians living in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine. Russia, through this highly provocative action, is intensifying its assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. President Putin’s decision creates a serious obstacle to the implementation of the Minsk agreements and the reintegration of the Donbas region. The Minsk agreements, signed by Russia, call for the full restoration of Ukrainian government control over eastern Ukraine. This comes just three days after the Ukrainian people overwhelmingly elected Volodymyr Zelensky the next president of Ukraine. President-elect Zelensky has repeatedly expressed his readiness to engage seriously with Russia to implement the Minsk agreements, and to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has claimed some 13,000 lives. It is now up to Russia to decide whether it wants to continue to escalate tensions or meet its Minsk commitments.” (U.S. Department of State)
OSCE, Western powers assail Moscow’s plan
The OSCE and Western powers at the United Nations have criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to ease the process of granting Russian citizenship to Ukrainians in territory of eastern Ukraine held by Russia-backed separatists. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said in a statement on April 25 that its chairmanship “believes that this unilateral measure could undermine the efforts for a peaceful resolution of the crisis in and around Ukraine.” It said it was reiterating its “call for a sustainable, full and permanent cease-fire and its firm support for the work of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, which plays an essential role in reducing tensions on the ground, and in fostering peace, stability and security.” Ukraine appealed to the U.N. Security Council on April 25 to take “real action” against the citizenship decision, with Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko saying it was “simply illegal.” He added that granting Russian citizenship to Ukrainians amounted to a “creeping annexation” of east Ukraine and “consolidation of the total Russian control over the occupied territories.” The United States said it was “unacceptable” for Russia to decide to extend citizenship rights to Ukrainians and accused Moscow of fueling the conflict in the region. French Ambassador Francois Delattre asserted that “the solution to this crisis is not to hand out Russian passports to Ukrainian citizens” but to respect commitments made to end the conflict. German Ambassador Christoph Heusgen told reporters after the meeting that “we think right now the emphasis should be on a renewed effort to implement the Minsk agreement and to bring peace to the people that are suffering under this crisis.” Russia, as a permanent member of the council, can block any measures opposing the decree with its veto power. France and Germany, the European guarantors of the Minsk Accords, said earlier on April 25 that the decree “goes against the spirit and aims” of the Minsk process. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that with the decree “Russia is torpedoing the peace process in the Donbas.” Mr. Putin has rejected international criticism about his decision, telling reporters that objections to the decree were “strange.” He claimed that his decree was similar to policies in European Union member states like Romania and Hungary that grant citizenship to “their own ethnic kin living outside their borders.” However, Mr. Putin’s decree makes no reference to ethnicity, background or self-identification. Its wording suggests that anyone living in the separatist-held parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions can apply. (RFE/RL, with reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian, Reuters, AFP and AP)
Police investigate video omitting Crimea
Ukrainian national police have launched a criminal case into the playing of a video at Kyiv’s Boryspil Airport that showed a map of the country which did not include Crimea. The police said in an April 30 statement that they were looking into a possible “encroachment on the territorial integrity” of Ukraine after a citizen raised the issue the previous day. “Police are documenting the… distribution of illegal video content and questioning the airport’s personnel, identifying individuals who edited and offered the video to be used,” the police said. “A preliminary investigation has established that the proposal for the video to be used by the [airport] originated in the Information Policy Ministry.” According to the statement, a preliminary investigation is under way as police are trying to determine who ordered and created the video. The issue is very sensitive for Ukraine as Kyiv lost control over Crimea after Russia seized the peninsula in March 2014 upon sending in troops, seizing key facilities, and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by at least 100 countries in a U.N. General Assembly vote. (RFE/RL)
Homes of Crimean Tatar activists searched
Police have searched the homes of two Crimean Tatar activists in Ukraine’s Russia-controlled Crimea region, a Ukrainian human rights group says. Crimean Solidarity, a rights group that has members in Crimea and other parts of Ukraine, said that Russian police and security officers searched the homes of Rolan Osmanov and Delyaver Bekirov on the outskirts of the regional capital, Simferopol, on April 30. According to Crimea Solidarity, the activists were not arrested and nothing was confiscated during the search. The group quoted Mr. Osmanov as saying that police officers told him they were “looking for narcotics” in his home, while no clear explanation was given to Mr. Bekirov about the reason for the search in his house. An ambulance was called for Mr. Osmanov’s mother, who felt unwell during the search, Crimea Solidarity said. There was no immediate comment from the Russian authorities who control the region. Rights groups and Western governments have denounced what they describe as a campaign of repression by the Russian-imposed authorities in Crimea who are targeting members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar community and others who have spoken out against Moscow’s takeover of the peninsula. In its annual report on religious freedom worldwide, released on April 29, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said that “[in] Russian-occupied Crimea, the Russian authorities continued to kidnap, torture, and imprison Crimean Tatar Muslims at will.” (Crimea Desk, RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
17 die at mine in occupied eastern Ukraine
Reports from eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region say the death toll from an underground coal-mine explosion has been raised to 17, with Russia-backed separatist leaders who control the mine saying all the bodies of missing miners have been recovered. The revised death toll was announced on April 27 after search-and-rescue workers recovered the miners’ bodies from beneath debris inside the mine in the village of Yurivka, which is in territory controlled by Russia-backed separatists. Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry says it sent mine rescuers to the Skhidcarbon mine at the request of separatist leaders who control the mine’s operations. Rescue workers from the Ukrainian government did not have official access to the area. A methane gas explosion ripped through the mine on April 25, reportedly causing parts of the mine to collapse. The Skhidcarbon mine had been closed in 2014 due to the conflict between Ukrainian government forces and the Russia-backed separatists. But it was reopened in 2018. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by AFP and DPA)