Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said he expects to bring the Russian-occupied part of eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea back under government control by the year’s end.
Speaking at a news conference in Kyiv on Jan. 14, a day after another round of peace talks were held in Minsk, Poroshenko said there had been “no sensations” there, and the main thing the country needs is a plan of action to ensure the terms of the truce are met. Russia’s war against Ukraine’s two easternmost regions of Luhansk and Donetsk has killed more than 9,000 people, displaced more than 2.2 million and left the much of the nation’s industrial heartland damaged since it started in April 2014.
On Donbas and Crimea
One possible way to accelerate the freeing of Crimea is to start negotiations in what is known as the Geneva Plus format, which includes the United States and European Union representatives and possibly other signatories of the Budapest Memorandum, Poroshenko said.He also said Kyiv was ready restore electricity supplies to Crimea, but the peninsula “should be Ukrainian.”
Power supplies to the peninsula have been disrupted since electricity pylons were blown up in November.
A new power supply contract for this year has yet to be signed. Regarding Donbas, Poroshenko said he was certain that the government “should restore its sovereignty” over eastern Ukraine this year. He said he would use all legal means and international talks to accomplish this. “We – society, the army, the government – have greatly strengthened our country’s defense,” Poroshenko said, adding that the 2016 budget for the army was Hr 57 billion.
“This is reflected by the fact that our enemy is losing its willingness to continue its offensive against Ukraine,” he said.
On the general prosecutor
Poroshenko has been under increasing criticism for clinging to Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, seen by critics as obstructing investigations into corruption at the highest levels. Asked whether he’d dismiss Shokin, Poroshenko said it would be impossible to find a prosecutor general who would “satisfy everyone.”
On Jan. 14 Poroshenko signed the law on the graft-fighting National Bureau of Investigation. All bribery cases currently at the General Prosecutor’s Office are to be transferred to the bureau, hence curbing the powers of the prosecutor general, the president said.
On Russian gas
Addressing journalists, Poroshenko said that Ukraine’s dependence on Russian gas had vanished: “Our energy system has been integrated into Europe’s,” the president said.
“We’re buying twice as much gas from the EU as we are receiving from Siberia.”
On prisoners
Peace talks in Minsk on Jan. 13 yielded an accord to release more than 50 prisoners. Poroshenko said he’d “meet anyone to bring our heroes (Nadia) Savchenko, (Oleh) Sentsov and others back and ensure that Ukrainian positions aren’t shelled.”
The president also hinted, although he didn’t directly confirm, that he met with Russia’s new envoy to peace talks, Boris Gryzlov, who is a former speaker of the Russian parliament.
On Roshen
Poroshenko said that he’d handed over his shares in the Roshen confectionary corporation to a “blind trust.” According to the president, the transfer of assets to a trust would prove that he had no influence over the management of these assets, or even be able to obtain background information about their management.
Poroshenko said that a respected “foreign bank of the first category” had been appointed to manage the assets. He didn’t name the bank, but said that such “blind trusts” are used by leading European and U.S. politicians in similar situations to his, and they are “the only tool to avoid a conflict of interest.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected].
