Zelenskyy thanks Trump for releasing aid
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has thanked U.S. President Donald Trump for releasing a $250 million military assistance package that the White House had previously held for review. The military aid is largely meant to train and equip Ukrainian forces as they fight against Russia-backed separatists in a war that has lasted more than five years, killed more than 13,000 people, and torn apart a large swath of eastern Ukraine. “I am thankful, I am grateful to him,” Mr. Zelenskyy said on September 13, a day after the White House dropped its resistance to the aid. Speaking at the opening of the annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) meeting organized by Ukrainian tycoon Viktor Pinchuk in Kyiv, Mr. Zelenskyy said that he felt his relationship with the fellow former TV star-turned-president was “very good” and called the United States an “important strategic partner.” Last week, the White House said it would review the military aid package, apparently over corruption concerns and to ensure that it would be used to further American foreign policy interests. The aid review quickly sparked criticism from Republicans and Democrats in Congress, where there has been strong bipartisan support for Ukraine on the issue of fighting Russian aggression since the Kremlin annexed Crimea and fomented the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Mr. Zelenskyy said he was careful not to comment publicly on the military aid issue while it was under review, suggesting that doing so could interfere with the White House’s decision. “But now we can say we have very good relations with the U.S., because now we will get not only $250 million but [an additional] $140 million,” he said, referring to reports that the U.S. State Department would also be moving forward with a separate $140 million aid package for Ukraine apart from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. The Ukrainian president also warned the West against lifting sanctions on Russia saying they are a tax needed “to maintain world order,” adding, “A peace tax, if you will. And you know in the civilized world it’s normal to pay taxes.” (Christopher Miller of RFE/RL)
Concern over appeal in Gongadze murder
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on September 16 “expressed concern” over the possibility that a former Ukrainian police general who confessed to the murder of a journalist may have his life prison sentence commuted. Oleksiy Pukach, who once headed the surveillance department of Ukraine’s Internal Affairs Ministry, was sentenced in January 2013 for the murder of Heorhiy Gongadze 13 years earlier on September 16. After his disappearance that day, Gongadze’s beheaded body was found two months later in a forest near Kyiv that sent shock waves through society and immediate calls for a thorough investigation. Mr. Pukach, meanwhile, has given conflicting accounts over the years, and has been appealing his life sentence for the past six years. His next appearance before the Supreme Court is on October 9, which is when he could be freed. “Nineteen years after the brutal murder… of Gongadze, there are concerns the confessed killer may go free. Ukrainian authorities should not allow impunity for journalists’ killings to reign,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s European and Central Asia program coordinator. “There must be full justice… and the masterminds must also be held accountable.” Gongadze’s widow, Myroslava Gongadze, told CPJ that “Pukach’s release would be a serious hit to media freedom in Ukraine. It would show that perpetrators of crimes against journalists are not fully held accountable before the law.” (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by Ukrayinska Pravda)
Kyiv eyes hike in defense spending
As Kyiv seeks to meet Russia, Germany and France by the end of the month for talks on the armed Donbas conflict, Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk unveiled the first draft of next year’s state budget that foresees a 16 percent spike in defense spending. Speaking at a briefing with Finance Minister Oksana Makarova on September 15, Mr. Honcharuk said defense spending would reach $8.7 billion when taking into consideration the 2020 budget’s currency exchange rate of 28.2 hrv per U.S. dollar. In August 2014, then-President Petro Poroshenko’s administration introduced a 1.5 percent automatic deduction from monthly salaries to contribute to the defense budget as Kyiv sought to upgrade its outdated Soviet-style army and confront a foe who was at times better equipped. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration has indicated that it wants to cancel the mandatory defense budget deductible. It’s not clear whether the current draft of the budget includes such a provision. Mr. Honcharuk said the budget has been registered with parliament and should be worked over by November 2. “We’re focusing on security and defense, infrastructure and quality road repairs, and put the individual at the front and center of the state’s development – we need to finish reforming education and health care,” Mr. Honcharuk said. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by Novoye Vremya, Ukrayinska Pravda and Bloomberg)
Volunteer battalions turn in weapons
Three volunteer battalions that for years fought for Kyiv against Russia-backed militants in eastern Ukraine have handed over their weapons to law enforcement. The Sheikh Mansur battalion, the battalion of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), and the 8th battalion of the Ukrainian Volunteer Army voluntarily surrendered their arms to the National Police in the Donetsk region on September 11, according to a police statement. Photographs published by the National Police showed artillery shells, rocket-propelled grenades, boxes of bullets and crates of explosives that were turned in. National Police First Deputy Chairman Vyacheslav Abroskin oversaw the transfer along with members of the military and the country’s security services. The battalions were among the last units composed purely of volunteer soldiers fighting in the five-year war that has killed more than 13,000 people. Most of Ukraine’s volunteer battalions were incorporated into military and police structures in 2014 and 2015. (RFE/RL)
EU extends sanctions to March 2020
The European Council stated on September 12 that it has extended the restrictive measures over actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine for a further six months, until March 15, 2020. The measures consist of an asset freeze and travel restrictions. They currently apply to 170 persons and 44 entities. The relevant information and statement of reasons for the listing of these persons and entities have been updated as necessary. Other EU measures in place in response to the crisis in Ukraine include: economic sanctions targeting specific sectors of the Russian economy, currently in place until January 31, 2020; restrictive measures in response to the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol, limited to the territory of Crimea and Sevastopol, currently in place until June 23, 2020.” (Ukrainian Canadian Congress Daily Briefing)
Kuchma: No to ‘unacceptable’ concessions
Leonid Kuchma, the Ukrainian president’s envoy for peace talks with Russia-backed militants has stressed that Kyiv should not make unacceptable concessions to Russia. Relations between Russia and Ukraine have been strained since 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and began backing militants in eastern Ukraine. In his remarks on September 13, Mr. Kuchma said Kyiv cannot accept trade-offs, such as approving a plan for the militants to hold elections in areas they control in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions without Ukrainian oversight. “The talk about Donbas elections has been constant. What elections are you talking about when armed people keep walking around? Elections can be held after troops and heavy weaponry are out of Ukraine, when Ukrainian authorities are established, and when journalists are let in,” Mr. Kuchma, Ukraine’s president from 1994 to 2005, was quoted as saying by Interfax. Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France – the so-called Normandy format of negotiations – last met in October 2016. Mr. Kuchma expressed concern that France and Germany may now push Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to make concessions. “Zelenskyy will have a very hard time – it will be one against three people,” Mr. Kuchma said. (RFE/RL, with reporting by RFE/RL correspondent Christopher Miller, AP, Interfax and TASS)
Zelenskyy talks ‘business’ with Kolomoisky
A picture posted on the Zelenskyy administration’s Facebook page showed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meeting oligarch and former business associate Ihor Kolomoisky on September 10, with a message stating they spoke about “issues of conducting business in Ukraine.” They also focused on the energy industry, the message said, reminding visitors to the page that at a business forum in June, Mr. Zelenskyy called on “big business” to invest in infrastructural projects in eastern Ukraine and “help the state resolve social problems.” Mr. Zelenskyy’s comedy shows aired on Mr. Kolomoisky’s television channel for nearly a decade. Others seen in the photo were: Presidential Office head Andriy Bohdan, who was Mr. Kolomoisky’s personal lawyer and with whom Mr. Zelenskyy flew at least five times starting in January from Kyiv to Tel Aviv, where the oligarch was residing at that time in self-imposed exile; Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, who managed the social-media campaign during Mr. Zelenskyy’s run for office; and first presidential aide Serhiy Shefir, a co-founder with Mr. Zelenskyy of the Studio Kvartal-95 production company and a former director of the studio. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Former NBU chief cites police raid
Valeria Gontareva, the former chief of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), says her apartment in Kyiv was raided by law enforcement officers. “Ten people in bulletproof vests forced their way with crowbars into my place of residence on Velyka Zhytomyrska [Street] in Kyiv and are conducting a search,” Ms. Gontareva told the Interfax news agency on September 12, adding that the men were masked and armed. Ms. Gontareva said that no one was in the apartment when the search was conducted. She said local authorities in Kyiv, including the prosecutor-general and police, knew that her current residence is in London. Ukraine’s State Bureau for Investigations neither confirmed nor rejected the report about the search, but said that offices of the state-owned military concern Ukroboronprom were being searched over a probe of alleged misdeeds by the former NBU leadership in 2016. A week earlier, Ms. Gontareva said that unknown attackers burned a car belonging to her daughter-in-law in front of her residence in Kyiv on the night of September 4. On August 26, a car ran over Ms. Gontareva’s foot in London, sending her to the hospital with broken bones. She said on September 9 that she might apply for political asylum in Britain, alleging that the incidents indicated pressure imposed on her by Ukrainian authorities. Ms. Gontareva’s efforts to clean up Ukraine’s financial sector as the NBU chairwoman in 2014-2018 irked wealthy oligarchs, who critics say have treated the country’s banks like their private coffers. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by Interfax)
Arson suspected at Gontareva’s home
The former governor of the National Bank of Ukraine says her home outside of Kyiv was burned to the ground overnight in an apparent case of arson. Speaking to RFE/RL by phone from her home in London, Valeria Gontareva said that someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail at her residence in the village of Horenychi, setting it ablaze in the early morning hours of September 17, in what she believes is an attack related to her time as central-bank chief from June 2014 to May 2017. Ukraine’s National Police said in a statement that CCTV cameras at the home showed an unknown person hopping over a fence on the property, which Ms. Gontareva said was uninhabited at the time of the incident, at about 3 a.m. local time. “It’s absolutely awful… the house was completely burned down,” she said, adding that it was the latest in a worrying string of incidents targeting her or her family. In a statement on Facebook, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the fire “a brutal crime” and said that law enforcement agencies should make the case a top priority. “In Ukraine, everyone should feel protected, regardless of their past or current positions and political views,” he said. “The right to security and the right to private property must be inviolable.” On Twitter, Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov called the fire “unacceptable.” Police said that “measures are being taken to locate and identify the person who committed the destruction of property.” While investigators were still on the ground, Mr. Avakov suggested a possible political motive behind the fire, saying he thought it was set now to coincide with the Kyiv visit of members of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “Whoever ordered and executed it at the time of the IMF mission’s arrival in Ukraine is not just an arsonist, he is an enemy who is hurting his country,” Mr. Avakov said. Ms. Gontareva and her family have faced several threats and violent incidents in recent months. She told RFE/RL she believed they are related and that her enemies, including tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, are going after her over her decision while governor of the National Bank of Ukraine in 2016 to nationalize PrivatBank. PrivatBank, the country’s largest lender, was owned by Mr. Kolomoisky when regulators found a $5.5 billion black hole in its balance sheet. It was nationalized soon after and is now overseen by the Finance Ministry. (Christopher Miller of RFE/RL)
Facebook removes over 160 fake accounts
Facebook says it has deleted 168 accounts, 149 pages and 79 groups based in Ukraine for “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” its head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said in a September 16 statement. He emphasized the reason behind the removals was “not the content they posted.” Mr. Gleicher said the “people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis of our action.” Some groups and pages in Ukraine “changed their names over time,” and to increase engagement, they disseminated content and drove “people to off-platform sites posing as news outlets.” The social media platform concluded that the activity in Ukraine was linked to Pragmatico, a Ukrainian public-relations firm. Two Ukrainian news outlets whose accounts were deleted protested Facebook’s move. Znaj.ua and Politeka countered that certain politicians wanted to limit freedom of speech through Facebook. In a September 17 statement on its website, Znaj.ua said that every “member of its team can verify their identity, has passports, and is a living person, not virtual.” Similarly, Politeka said its team was composed of “journalists and programmers, search-engine-optimization experts, and content managers – this is a huge team, every one of whom can verify their identity.” Facebook also said that 4.2 million accounts joined at least one of the 79 Ukrainian groups that were deleted and that about $1.6 million was spent on Facebook and Instagram advertisements paid for in U.S. dollars. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by Ukrayinska Pravda)
Former separatist fatally shot in Mariupol
A 28-year-old man who fought alongside Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine was on September 16 found dead with seven gunshot wounds on a stairwell inside a residential building in the Donetsk region city of Mariupol. Local police confirmed Roman Dzhumayev’s death to RFE/RL and the UNIAN news agency said homicide detectives are investigating it as premeditated murder. When the armed conflict started in Ukraine’s easternmost Luhansk and Donetsk regions in April 2014, Mr. Dzhumayev was employed in Kyiv as a programmer. He joined the Kremlin-backed militants that summer and took part in fighting for the Donetsk airport and the battle of Debaltseve in early 2015. Afterwards he moved to Belarus, where he gave an interview to RFE/RL in March 2016. The reason he went to fight was because “my great-grandfather fought [in World War II] and passed through all of Ukraine… we were always for Russia,” Mr. Dzhumayev said. “And now… I took the Donetsk region’s side because I’m from Mariupol.” He moved to Russia before returning to Ukraine in autumn 2017. Authorities arrested him when he crossed into government-controlled territory and charged him with terrorism and “participating in illegally armed groups.” In May 2018, Mr. Dzhumayev was released under house arrest and had to be home at nights. While living with his mother, he opened a small pizzeria and was arrested again in December 2018 after pepper-spraying the face of a police officer. In that case, he was released under house arrest on August 5. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by Censor.net, Ukrayinska Pravda and UNIAN)