Dozens of activists protested in front of the Presidential Administration on March 6 against the inaction of Ukrainian prosecutors, who have failed to recover assets allegedly stolen by allies of ousted ex-president Viktor Yanukovych.
The activists, including the executive director of the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Action Center Daria Kaleniuk, lawmaker Sergii Leshchenko, and Oleksiy Grytsenko from the AutoMaidan protest group, said that European Union had removed the assets of Yury Ivanyushchenko, an ally of ousted former Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych, from its sanctions list on March 3. According to Kaleniuk, all the criminal cases against Ivanyushchenko in Ukraine were closed a year ago.
Activists said that sanctions against Ivanyushchenko lapsed because of Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Deputy Prosecutor Yuriy Stolyarchuk, who is also head of a new anti-corruption department at the prosecutor’s office. Lutsenko, however, earlier blamed judges of Supreme Court on withdrawing all charges from Ivanyushchenko.
Ivanyushchenko is accused of embezzling money received by Ukraine from the sale of Japanese greenhouse gas emissions quotas under the Kyoto Protocol, and setting up corrupt schemes. Ivanyushchenko had been wanted in Ukraine from January 2015.
