Sentsov registers for military service
Ukrainian filmmaker and former Kremlin political prisoner Oleh Sentsov has registered for military service. In a Facebook post on December 10, Mr. Sentsov, 43, posted a picture of a military identification card that says he is an army reservist. “Since I’m a resident of Kyiv, I went and registered for military service. Now, I’m an army reservist,” he said. “The military registration and enlistment offices are obviously dingy-looking, but the people inside are really nice. The same with our country: The people are nice, but they are unable to build a normal state.” Mr. Sentsov until September 7 had been serving a 20-year prison sentence on what international, Russian and Ukrainian rights groups said were trumped-up charges of “plotting terrorist acts” against Russia in Crimea, Ukraine’s peninsula that Moscow forcibly annexed in early 2014. He had opposed and refused to recognize Moscow’s imposed rule on the Ukrainian territory. Mr. Sentsov was incarcerated for more than five years and spent 145 days on hunger strike in 2018, demanding that Russia release all Ukrainian political prisoners. He received last year’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought on November 26 from the European Parliament. During his acceptance speech, Mr. Sentsov urged European lawmakers not to forget the Ukrainians’ sacrifices in the ongoing conflict with Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. “Every time, when some of you think about stretching out a hand of friendship to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin over our heads, you should remember each of 13,000 [people] killed in Ukraine, the hundreds of our boys kept in prisons, who may be tortured as we speak, the Crimean Tatars, who may at this very moment be arrested,” he said. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Investigators confirm probe of Poroshenko
Ukrainian investigators are looking into whether former President Petro Poroshenko committed treason when the so-called Minsk agreement in 2015, a 13-point road map for resolving the military conflict in eastern Ukraine, was signed. State Bureau of Investigations spokeswoman Anzhelika Ivanova on December 10 confirmed to RFE/RL that a criminal case is open “on the possible commitment of high treason by Poroshenko.” The agreement is the product of an all-night negotiating session in the Belarusian capital between the leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine in February 2015. It was supposed to revive an earlier eponymous ceasefire agreement that was brokered in 2014 after Russian reinforcements late that summer invaded eastern Ukraine in support of Moscow-backed militants and pushed back Kyiv forces who were on the offensive and on the verge of successfully retaking lost territories. Suddenly, the combined Russian-separatist forces appeared poised to swallow up more territory, so a hurried truce was brokered between Ukraine, Russia and the militants. The second Minsk agreement calls for the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the frontline, a process that has been monitored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Additional points stipulate an “all for all” exchange of prisoners, local elections in eastern Ukraine and amnesty for combatants. The agreement contains indefinite language and the sequencing of steps, including when Kyiv would regain control over its borders with Russia, is convoluted. After four-way talks in Paris on December 9 with the leaders of Ukraine, France and Germany, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized that there was no alternative to implementing the Minsk agreement. The State Bureau of Investigations has at least 13 other criminal cases open in which Mr. Poroshenko figures either as a suspect, a witness or a person of interest. Currently a national deputy in the Verkhovna Rada, post-Soviet Ukraine’s fifth president has called the cases “a vivid confirmation of the revanchism that is trying to spread in Ukraine today like a cancerous tumor.” (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Protesters lay out ‘red lines’ for Zelenskyy
Thousands of Ukrainians gathered in downtown Kyiv on December 8 under the banner “Red Lines For Ze” and calling for a tough stance from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy when he joins the leaders of France, Germany and Russia for peace talks in Paris on December 9. Holding Ukrainian flags and banners reading “No compromises” and “No surrender,” the crowd at Independence Square in the capital, the hub of unrest that eventually unseated a pro-Russian Ukrainian president five years ago, set out five “red lines” that it warned Mr. Zelenskyy not to cross in the upcoming talks. They were: territorial integrity and no federalization, no compromise on Ukraine’s pro-European course, no actions to legitimize the occupation of Ukrainian territory, insistence that Russian-occupied Crimea be returned, and no end to suits filed internationally over Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Addressing the protesters in Kyiv on December 8, former President Petro Poroshenko said that, if peace means “a surrender of Ukrainian interests, it is not peace but capitulation.” He gave tips to Mr. Zelenskyy ahead of the Paris meeting, saying: “Don’t believe Putin” and “Don’t be afraid of Putin.” President Zelenskyy’s spokeswoman, Julia Mendel, wrote on Facebook: “We are in a difficult situation, but we’re flying to Paris with a very strong position,” saying Kyiv is enjoying support from Germany, France, the United States, and Britain, as well as “the Ukrainian people who want the end of the war.” Yet “the war in Donbas will not end on December 10,” Ms. Mendel added. Moscow has maintained it is not a party to the ongoing eastern Ukrainian war despite considerable evidence to the contrary, including captured Russian fighters and Russian ties to the weapon and individuals deemed responsible for the downing over rebel-held territory of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July 2014, which killed all 283 passengers and crew. The International Criminal Court concluded in 2016 that the eastern Ukrainian conflict was “an international armed conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation.” (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by DPA).
Evidence of Ukrainian soldiers’ ‘executions’
Evidence that Russia-backed militants in eastern Ukraine killed soldiers in their captivity execution-style has been forwarded to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office said it had photo and video evidence relating to the killings of nine servicemen by the militants during fighting at Ilovaisk in 2014 and Debaltseve in 2015. In a press release, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) said its evidence suggests the killings were carried out by fighters of the so-called Cossack Union Don Army Oblast. The material was prepared with assistance from the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union. It includes photographic and video evidence showing that the Ukrainian soldiers had been captured, as well as witness testimony and documents confirming they were killed while prisoners. Amnesty International in 2015 reported it had proof of “execution-style killings” by Russia-backed armed groups in eastern Ukraine, where more than 13,000 have died in fighting since April 2014, a month after Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Fighting in Ilovaisk in August-September 2014 and Debaltseve in February 2015 was especially fierce with Western intelligence and reporters on the ground saying the militants were backed by regular Russian armed forces. The open-source research group Forensic Architecture reported in August that sophisticated Russian military hardware had been employed during the fighting in Ilovaisk, including Russian T-72B3 tanks, depicted in satellite imagery in and around Ilovaisk at that time. Russia has repeatedly denied providing arms, financing, or any other support to the separatists in eastern Ukraine, despite much evidence to the contrary. In its 2015 report, Amnesty International said: “The torture, ill-treatment and killing of captured, surrendered or wounded soldiers are war crimes.” In its December 5 statement, the PGO accused Moscow of employing illegal armed groups not only to gain military advantage, but to “carry out serious violations of international humanitarian law.” Ukraine has approached the ICC to examine the worst crimes perpetrated during and after the Maidan as well as during the fighting in eastern Ukraine. (Current Time)
Rada votes to reboot graft-fighting agency
Ukraine’s Parliament on December 3 passed a law that revamps the State Bureau of Investigations (DBR) on the same day that authorities detained a close associate of the corruption-fighting agency’s chief for allegedly demanding a $150,000 bribe from a construction company. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Facebook that the suspect was the agency head’s “right-hand man” while local media reports identified him as Ihor Shcherbyna, who headed the main investigation department of the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) in 2014-2015. Roman Truba, who was dismissed as DBR’s director on December 3 when the Verkhovna Rada passed the new law, had worked under Mr. Shcherbyna. Authorities arrested the former prosecutor while he was accepting $75,000 of upfront money to allegedly facilitate the closure of a criminal case on behalf of a construction firm. The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office said part of the overall bribe was designated “for the head of one of the law enforcement agencies,” which Mr. Zelenskyy said was the DBR. According to the passed amendments, the president gets to appoint the DBR director from among a set of finalists who undergo a competitive selection process. The DBR’s principal mandate is to investigate high-level political crime and is “tasked with preventing, detecting, stopping, solving, and investigating crimes within its competence.” A special investigative department was created at the DBR to solve crimes committed in 2013-2014 when 98 people were killed – including 84 protesters and 13 law enforcement officers – during nearly three months of protests on the Maidan. In addition, detectives from the PGO who had previously worked on cases related to the Maidan will be transferred to the DBR without having to go through a hiring process. Mr. Truba, the former DBR director, had opposed passage of the law. Last month, Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka said an investigation was under way into leaked audio recordings that allegedly implicate Mr. Truba discussing wrongfully closing cases opened by the DBR. (RFE/RL, with reporting by Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, Interfax, Hromadske Radio, Ukrayinska Pravda and the Kyiv Post)
Ukraine gets first shipment of U.S. LNG
The head of the state-owned Naftogaz oil and gas conglomerate, Andriy Kobolyev, has lauded the fourth consecutive year that Ukraine hasn’t imported natural gas from its neighbor, Russia. In a Facebook post on November 26, Mr. Kobolyev noted that Ukraine went from being “more than 90 percent” dependent on Russian gas in 2013 to having 65 companies importing the fuel from 18 European suppliers whose individual share never exceeded 30 percent. “Not too long ago, American liquefied gas was supplied to Ukraine for the first time,” Mr. Kobolyev wrote. “Market mechanisms have done what politicians could not do for decades – depriving Ukraine’s gas and political dependence on Russia.” He was referring to a shipment of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) that Poland sold to Ukraine this month. On November 19, a ship carrying LNG for Ukraine arrived at the Swinoujscie terminal in Poland. Poland’s state-run PGNiG bought and sold 75,000 tons of LNG to Ukraine, which after converting it to gas will equal almost 100 million cubic meters. Mr. Kobolyev added that domestic gas extraction satisfies roughly two-thirds of domestic demand. He mentioned the need to further decrease outside dependency by boosting local production with private extractors while improving on energy-saving technologies and reducing demand for gas. (RFE/RL)
Death toll rises in Odesa college fire
The death toll from a fire at a technical college in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa has risen to 12 after rescuers recovered two more bodies from the site of the blaze. According to the Odesa branch of the National Police, rescuers found two more bodies in the rubble of the building on December 9, putting the death toll at 12. Four students killed in the fire have been identified, while a rescue worker who sustained injures during the course of fighting the fire died after being taken to hospital. Police said on December 9 that four people remain missing. The fire erupted in the morning on December 4 on the third floor of the six-story Odesa College of Economics, Law, and Hotel and Restaurant Business, eventually engulfing an area of 4,000 square meters and injuring 30 people. While visiting Odesa on December 8, Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk said several officials in the Odesa region had been fired over the tragedy, which police said may have been caused by arson or overloaded power lines. A criminal investigation has been opened. The Odesa branch of the National Police stated on December 7 that two unidentified people will be charged in connection with the deadly fire. The last time the college underwent a fire inspection was five years ago, Mr. Honcharuk said. “Back then the main [fire code] violations were found, and this year the building wasn’t even on the priority list for an inspection,” he said on his personal Telegram social-media channel. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared December 8 a national day of mourning for the victims. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by Ukrinform, Interfax, Ukrayinska Pravda and DPA)
Lawmaker hospitalized after Rada brawl
A lawmaker representing Ukraine’s ruling Servant of the People party has been hospitalized following a brawl in the Parliament. The party’s representative in the Verkhovna Rada, Yevhenia Kravchuk, wrote on Facebook that her colleague Andriy Bohdanets was admitted to the hospital with a suspected concussion after the brawl on December 11. Mr. Bohdanets and Eduard Leonov of the Svoboda party exchanged punches when a parliamentary decision began debating a draft bill allowing for the privatization of agricultural land. The Svoboda party has long opposed the issue. In a statement, the ruling Servant of the People party called the incident “a deliberate provocation aimed at disrupting the lawmaking process and destabilizing the situation in Parliament for the benefit of certain political forces.” Meanwhile, the Svoboda party insists that the brawl was started by Mr. Bohdanets. The National Police force said that it has launched a probe into the incident. Ukraine introduced a moratorium of land sales in 2001 until January 1, 2020. On November 13, Ukrainian lawmakers approved in the first reading the bill allowing the sale of agricultural land as of October 2020. The plan to allow land sales in Ukraine has been supported by Western entities, including the International Monetary Fund and the European Court of Human Rights. But many critics fear such a move would see foreigners buy up land. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
NDAA to include pipeline sanctions
U.S. Senate and House committees have agreed to include a bill sanctioning Russia’s new natural-gas pipeline to Europe into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), putting up a potential roadblock to the project’s completion. The House and Senate are expected to vote later this month on the NDAA, which often becomes a vehicle for a range of policy initiatives, as it’s one of only a few pieces of major legislation that Congress approves each year. The proposal attached to the bill that addresses Nord Stream 2 would impose U.S. sanctions on any companies helping Russia lay the $11 billion pipeline. Lawmakers have expressed concerns that Russia is building the project to bypass Ukraine while helping strengthen its supply line to Europe. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline will have the capacity to carry up to 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually from Russia to Germany along the Baltic Sea floor. The pipeline is more than 80 percent built and is expected to be completed early next year. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), one of the co-sponsors of the bill, has said that only a few companies in the world have the technology to lay deep-sea pipelines and none of them are Russian, meaning the Kremlin could struggle to complete the project should the foreign companies obey the U.S. sanctions bill. Ukraine has lobbied Washington to pass the bill, as the pipeline would deprive the country of more than $2 billion in transit fees. The United States has sought to stop pipelines designed to carry Russian energy to Europe in the past, but failed each time. The NDAA also includes the reauthorization of $300 million of funding for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. (Todd Prince of RFE/RL)
IMF agrees to three-year lending plan
International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Kristalina Georgieva says the lender has reached agreement with Ukraine on a new three-year loan program worth $5.5 billion. Ms. Georgieva said in a statement on December 7 that the agreement was finalized following “a very constructive” phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in which she commended the new leader with reforms carried out in recent months. Ms. Georgieva, a Bulgarian economist, assumed her IMF role on October 1, while Mr. Zelenskyy took office in Ukraine on May 20. “During our conversation, I commended [Zelenskyy] for the impressive progress that he and his government have made in the past few months in advancing reforms and continuing with sound economic policies,” Ms. Georgieva said in her statement announcing the loan deal. She said the three-year plan is subject to approval by the IMF executive board and that the “effectiveness of the arrangement will be conditional on the implementation of a set of prior actions.” She noted, “The president and I agreed that Ukraine’s economic success depends crucially on strengthening the rule of law, enhancing the integrity of the judiciary, and reducing the role of vested interests in the economy.” The IMF chief also said it was “paramount to safeguard the gains made in cleaning up the banking system and recover the large costs to the taxpayers from bank resolutions.” In September, the IMF said that fighting corruption would be a key component of any new lending program that Ukraine receives. Before his appointment in August, Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk said Kyiv wanted to replace the existing $3.9 billion standby arrangement with the IMF that expires at year-end and replace it with a longer-term program. One “important element of the discussions,” IMF Communications Director Gerry Rice said at the time, was the “importance of creating an effective anti-corruption framework,” which has been a “critical element of our engagement with Ukraine for the last few years.” (RFE/RL)
Venice Commission comments on language law
The Council of Europe’s constitutional experts have criticized controversial language legislation adopted in Ukraine earlier this year and previous regulations regarding educational institutions signed into law by the country’s previous president, Petro Poroshenko. The Venice Commission on December 6 said it specifically took issue with what it sees as an extremely short transition period for the converting of Russian-language schools into Ukrainian-language institutions. The commission also said it considers quotas for minority languages in radio and TV programs to be unbalanced. “To avoid the language issue becoming a source of inter-ethnic tensions within Ukraine, it is of crucial importance to achieve an appropriate balance in its language policy,” the commission said. “The authorities have so far failed to do so.” The State Language Law, which went into effect on July 16, declares that Ukrainian is “the only official state language” in the country. It adds that “attempts” to introduce other languages as the state language would be considered an effort to “forcibly change the constitutional order.” President Poroshenko signed the bill into law days before he left office following his electoral defeat to rival Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Previous legislation, signed by Mr. Poroshenko in September 2017, made Ukrainian the required language of study in state schools from the fifth grade on. The bill did not outlaw instruction in other languages, allowing students to learn their native languages as a separate subject. Some native Russian speakers in Ukraine claim Kyiv is deliberately curtailing the use of the Russian language. The Kremlin has also assailed the language laws. Ukrainian speakers argue that the prominence of Russia is a legacy of the Soviet era that undermines Ukraine’s identity and cite efforts to suppress the Ukrainian language during communist times. Ukrainian is the native language of some 67 percent of Ukraine’s almost 45 million population, while Russian is the native language of almost 30 percent. Russian is spoken mostly in urban areas. Almost 3 percent of Ukraine’s inhabitants are native speakers of other languages. The Venice Commission noted that the transitional period for the implementation of an education law has been extended from September 1, 2020, to September 1, 2023, “but only for students whose native language is an EU language, and not for those with other native languages, including Russian.” The commission also said: “In view of the particular place of the Russian language in Ukraine, as well as the oppression of the Ukrainian language in the past, the Venice Commission fully understands the need to promote the use of Ukrainian as the state language.” It added, “It is, therefore, commendable that the State Language Law provides for positive measures to this end by obliging the state to provide each citizen of Ukraine with an opportunity to master the language through the educational system, to organize free language courses, and to promote access to films and other cultural products in Ukrainian.” However, it stated the need for “balance” and urged Ukraine to consider postponing implementation of State Language Law provisions already in effect until a Minorities Law can be enacted to protect other languages. Separately, Hungary’s foreign minister on December 4 said Budapest would block Ukraine’s membership in NATO until Kyiv restored the rights that ethnic Hungarians had before the September 2017 language law went into effect. (RFE/RL, with reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, Reuters, DPA and TASS)