KYIV – Ukraine has been shaken by a new scandal involving leaked recordings, purportedly made secretly at the highest level, but this time involving former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the current U.S. presidential candidate from the Democratic Party, Joe Biden.
While this affair obviously has potential ramifications within the context of the U.S. presidential campaign and for U.S.-Ukraine relations generally, it is already impacting Ukrainian domestic politics.
On May 19, Ukrainian National Deputy Andriy Derkach, an ally of President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, released audio recordings received from “investigative journalists” of alleged phone conversations between former U.S. Vice-President Biden and former President Poroshenko made in 2015-2016 when they were in office.