Saakashvili hails ‘courageous’ Zelensky
Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgian president who served as governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region in 2015-2016, has welcomed the restoration of his Ukrainian citizenship by President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “courageous step by a courageous and worthy president.” Mr. Saakashvili made the remark in an interview with RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service on May 28 after Mr. Zelensky signed a decree that annulled a decree by his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, which deprived Mr. Saakashvili of his citizenship. Speaking via Skype from Poland, Mr. Saakashvili told RFE/RL that Mr. Poroshenko’s decision to strip him of Ukrainian citizenship was a “cowardly step by an unworthy president.” He said he was grateful to Ukrainians who have supported him, and that he was “certain there are many people in Ukraine who would not like to see me [back] in Ukraine.” He said Mr. Zelensky’s decision to “very quickly” restore his Ukrainian citizenship shows “his character.” Mr. Saakashvili’s spokeswoman Tanya Bahranovska told RFE/RL that he plans to return to Kyiv on the afternoon of May 29 on a flight from Warsaw. Mr. Saakashvili was granted Ukrainian citizenship and appointed to the Odesa governor’s post in 2015 by Mr. Poroshenko, an acquaintance from their student days. Authorities in Tbilisi stripped Mr. Saakashvili of his Georgian citizenship in December 2015 on grounds that Georgia does not allow dual citizenship. Then, when relations between Messrs. Poroshenko and Saakashvili had soured over corruption allegations and reform efforts, the then-president fired Mr. Saakashvili from the Odesa governor’s post in November 2016. Mr. Poroshenko issued the decree that stripped Mr. Saakashvili of his Ukrainian citizenship In July 2017 after Mr. Saakashvili created an opposition party called the Movement of New Forces. In February 2018, Mr. Saakashvili was detained in Kyiv, taken to the airport, and flown to Poland. Days later, Ukraine’s border service banned Mr. Saakashvili from entering Ukraine until February 13, 2021. “I want to emphasize again that I have no personal professional ambitions,” Saakashvili told RFE/RL on May 28, adding that what was of “utmost importance” to him is that “Ukraine be successful.” He added, “So, I’m returning home [to Kyiv] and then we’ll see. I’ll consult. I’ll be talking to people.” Mr. Saakashvili said, “We cannot let this third chance pass us by,” explaining that Ukraine had a chance to carry out successful reforms after its Orange Revolution in 2004 and again after the Maidan protests that pushed Ukraine’s pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych from power in 2014. He described Ukraine’s “third chance” as “a peaceful electoral revolution.” However, he did not clarify whether an “electoral revolution” referred to Mr. Zelensky’s presidential election victory in April, early parliamentary elections scheduled in July following Mr. Zelensky’s May 21 decree that dissolved Parliament, or both. In Georgia, Mr. Saakashvili was swept into power after helping lead the peaceful Rose Revolution protests there in 2003, when he was mayor of Tbilisi. But his party was dislodged from power by an opposition force in 2012 parliamentary elections and his term as president expired in 2013. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by RFE/RL correspondent Christopher Miller in Kyiv)
Zelensky visits Ukraine’s frontline
Donning a bulletproof helmet and vest over business attire, Volodymyr Zelensky made his first visit as president and supreme commander-in-chief to the frontline of the war in eastern Ukraine with Russia-backed militants that has killed 13,000 people and shows no sign of ending. During the May 27 visit, which was not announced ahead of time, Mr. Zelensky met with Ukrainian troops in the war-torn towns of Stanytsia Luhanska and Shchastia in the Luhansk region, according to the presidential press service. The press service said the newly elected head of state made the trip to get acquainted with the positions of the Ukrainian military. President Zelensky also spoke with soldiers about living conditions, food quality, equipment, housing, social benefits and staffing of units, the press service added. “The conditions for the military that defends Ukraine must be good,” Mr. Zelensky was quoted as saying. Official photographs showed Mr. Zelensky, who donned slacks and a blue-collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up, looking over a military map with soldiers, treading through a field with them and peering through a lookout toward enemy positions from inside a bunker. Mr. Zelensky, who was inaugurated on May 20 after a landslide victory over Poroshenko, has said that bringing the war to an end is among his top priorities and that he is prepared to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to do so. But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that Mr. Putin, who did not congratulate Mr. Zelensky on his election victory, will do so after the Ukrainian leader resolves “the internal conflict in southeastern Ukraine” and his “first successes in normalizing Russian-Ukrainian relations.” The Kremlin has repeatedly denied fueling the war, which entered its sixth year last month, despite overwhelming evidence showing that it has covertly supported separatist forces in eastern Ukraine with funds, military equipment, and fighters. (RFE/RL)
Court upholds extending sailors’ detention
A Moscow court has upheld a decision to extend the pretrial detainment period for the 24 Ukrainian seamen captured by Russia in November 2018, defying a United Nations maritime tribunal ruling that the sailors be immediately released. The Moscow City Court on May 27 upheld the Lefortovo district court’s ruling in April to keep the servicemen in jail until July, pending further investigation and trial. The lawyers of the sailors had filed an appeal against the extension. The decision came two days after the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea ruled that Russia must “immediately” release 24 Ukrainian sailors and three Ukrainian naval vessels it captured. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on May 27 dismissed the ruling, saying Moscow would continue to “consistently defend its point of view.” Mr. Peskov claimed that the convention did not apply in the current case. Russia seized the ships in November near the Kerch Strait bridge, which connects the Russian mainland to the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea. Relations between Russia and Ukraine have been tense since Moscow annexed Crimea in March 2014 and began providing military, political and economic support to separatist formations waging a war against Kyiv in parts of eastern Ukraine. (RFE/RL, with reporting by AFP)
Almost 60 percent trust Zelensky
Findings of a public opinion poll conducted by the Oleksandr Yaremenko Ukrainian Institute for Social Research, the Social Monitoring Center and the Institute of Economics and Forecasting of Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences show that the majority of Ukrainians trust President Volodymyr Zelensky and the country’s armed forces. According to the poll results, which were presented at Interfax-Ukraine’s office on May 23, almost 58 percent of Ukrainians generally trust Mr. Zelensky, 35.1 percent are more likely to trust the president, and 23 percent of citizens trust him completely. Former President Petro Poroshenko had the trust of 15 percent of respondents (11.3 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively). The Ukrainian Armed Forces enjoy the trust of more than 64 percent of respondents; the National Police, 30.7 percent; law enforcement agencies, 30.6 percent; the Security Service of Ukraine, 29.9 percent; the Prosecutor General’s Office, 18.4 percent; and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, 15.3 percent. Some 22.9 percent of Ukrainians have confidence in the National Bank of Ukraine, 14.8 percent in the Cabinet, 13.3 percent in political parties, and 10.3 percent in the Verkhovna Rada. The poll was conducted in 24 Ukrainian regions and the city of Kyiv on May 10-18 and involved 2,100 people. The margin of error is between 1.31 percent and 2.18 percent. (Interfax Ukraine)
President’s party names new leader
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s newly formed political party has appointed campaign adviser Dmytro Razumkov as its head and will interview prospective candidates to fill its party list ahead of snap parliamentary elections on July 21, party representatives have said. The announcement was made by Mr. Razumkov, who spoke at a May 27 press conference along with Oleksandr Korniyenko, head of the Servant of the People party’s election headquarters, and Mykhaylo Fedorov, the party’s chief of digital strategies. Mr. Razumkov, the director of a political consulting company, got his start in politics as a member of the former Party of Regions of Viktor Yanukovych, the Moscow-friendly president who was pushed from power by the Maidan protest movement in 2014 and fled to Russia. He said that at a recent party congress he was elected in place of Ivan Bakanov, a campaign adviser and lawyer for Mr. Zelensky’s Kvartal 95 entertainment company whom the new president appointed to be first deputy head of the Ukrainian Security Service of Ukraine on May 22. In line with previous practices by Mr. Zelensky, who has crowdsourced policies and potential Cabinet members, Mr. Korniyenko said that Servant of the People will select candidates for the elections from applications submitted to a party website. Successful applicants must then pass a compliance test to ensure their views align with the president’s and undergo interviews with the party’s leaders, he said. Mr. Korniyenko at first said that no current lawmaker would be allowed on the party’s candidate list but then backtracked, saying that some may be considered if they had produced what the party deemed to be “quality work” during their time as lawmakers in the Verkhovna Rada. A poll conducted this month by the Rating Sociological Group found that 43.8 percent of Ukrainian voters supported the Servant of the People party, while 10.5 percent supported the pro-Russian Opposition Platform – For Life and 8.8 percent backed the Western-oriented Petro Poroshenko Bloc of the former president, which was recently renamed European Solidarity. Also at the press conference, Mr. Fedorov displayed the Servant party’s new logo: a silhouette of Mr. Zelensky riding a bicycle and wielding the presidential mace, or “bulava.” The image is strikingly similar to that of the accidental-president character Mr. Zelensky played on his hit TV show, also called “Servant of the People.” (Christopher Miller of RFE/RL)
Poroshenko’s bloc rebrands itself
The political party of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has changed its name in a bid to rebrand itself ahead of key parliamentary elections. The Petro Poroshenko Bloc was renamed to European Solidarity at a party congress on May 24. “The key to unity and victory is a renewed party and renewed leadership,” Mr. Poroshenko told the gathering in Kyiv. The new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced at his inauguration on May 20 that he would dissolve Parliament and call snap elections in July. He has also called for that election to be held based entirely on voting for parties, rather than single candidates, arguing that the current system in which some seats are filled in contests between individual candidates favors corruption. But at an emergency session of the Verkhovna Rada on May 22, only 92 lawmakers voted to discuss that proposal – far short of the majority, 226 votes, needed to put it on the agenda. The next regular parliamentary elections had been set for late October. As he starts his term, early elections are a chance for President Zelensky to strengthen his position and sideline allies of Mr. Poroshenko. (Current Time)
Zelensky, Merkel discuss eastern Ukraine
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke by phone on May 24, discussing efforts to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine, both offices said. According to Mr. Zelensky’s office, both leaders agreed on the need to restart peace efforts, including in the so-called Normandy format, which brings together Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France. The statement also said that Ukraine’s new president plans to hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron in the nearest future. In Berlin, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on May 24 that Ms. Merkel and Mr. Zelensky agreed on a need for a “full implementation” of the current peace agreements. In Moscow, the Kremlin said Russia would support a meeting within the Normandy format if there would be potential for a significant result. “No one wants it to be a meeting for the sake of a meeting,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by TASS on May 24. Ceasefire deals announced as part of the Minsk accords – September 2014 and February 2015 pacts aimed at resolving the conflict – have contributed to a decrease in fighting but have failed to hold. A new ceasefire agreement was reached on March 8, but both sides have accused each other of repeated violations since then. (RFE/RL, with reporting by DPA and TASS)
Four guards injured in prison violence
Four prison guards have been injured in what Ukrainian law enforcement authorities said was a riot by inmates at a penitentiary in the Odesa region. Regional police said that prisoners at Correctional Colony No. 51 in the southern region started the riot early on May 27. They said a vehicle on prison grounds was set on fire. Inmates were apparently protesting over a series of searches by guards, Ukraine’s human rights ombudswoman, Lyudmyla Denisova, wrote on Facebook. “The rioters took three medical personnel and three guards hostage” but they were released and “at this point the situation is under control,” Ms. Denisova wrote. Media reports said the prison was cordoned off by riot police and traffic was restricted in the area. Nobody was killed but four guards were treated for injuries, police said. The inmates accused of instigating the riot have been isolated from the other prisoners and an investigation on suspicion of “activities destabilizing the operations of a penitentiary facility” has been opened, they said. (RFE/RL, with reporting by UNIAN, Gordon and Ukrayinska Pravda)