Mykola Martynenko, an ally of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, said on Nov. 30 that he had submitted his resignation as a member of the Verkhovna Rada.
The decision comes amid a high-profile corruption scandal around Martynenko.
Swiss and Czech prosecutors are investigating Martynenko on suspicion of accepting 30 million Swiss francs from Czech engineering firm Skoda for giving it a contract to supply equipment to state-owned nuclear power firm Energoatom.
Last week Sergii Leshchenko, a lawmaker from President Petro Poroshenko’s bloc, published documents from Swiss prosecutors that detail the corruption accusations and ask for help from Ukrainian prosecutors, assistance that evidently was not forthcoming.
Ukrainian authorities have shown no interest in investigating Martynenko, however.
“Given that attacks against me are also attacks against the Cabinet and the authorities in general, I submit my resignation as a lawmaker and voluntarily renounce my parliamentary immunity,” Martynenko, a member of Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front faction and head of the Verkhovna Rada’s fuel and energy committee, said on the Free Speech talk show on the ICTV television channel.
He urged parliament to vote on the issue next week, possibly on Dec. 10.
Martynenko also said he was ready to testify in Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine in his case.
“I’m going to protect myself as a private citizen without an MP’s mandate,” he said. “I will prove that I’m right through legal means.”
He added that he would “necessarily find the organizers” of the alleged smear campaign against him.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].
