October 4, 2019

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Zelenskyy agrees to Steinmeier formula

A deal announced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to allow local elections in “separatist”-held parts of eastern Ukraine under certain security conditions has triggered a backlash, including protests, in Ukraine and praise from the Kremlin. Opposition politicians and their supporters in Ukraine on October 2 showed their disdain for the deal, brokered in Minsk with Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which a day earlier Mr. Zelenskyy said would pave the way for peace talks with Moscow to end the war in the Donbas that has killed more than 13,000 since April 2014. He added there would be no elections in militant-held areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions until all armed formations have left the area and Ukraine regains control over about 400 kilometers of borderland with Russia. “There cannot be and will not be elections held at gunpoint,” Mr. Zelenskyy said. “There will be no capitulation.” The occupied regions would receive self-governing status once they hold elections that are deemed to be free and fair by the OSCE, according to what is known as the Steinmeier Formula, a component of an overall road map for attaining peace. The Kremlin said on October 2 that it approved of the deal, Russian media reported. Moscow had demanded that Kyiv agree to the Steinmeier Formula before it would consent to four-way peace talks with Ukraine, Germany and France in the so-called Normandy format. The four countries have not met for peace talks since October 2016. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he expected a date to be set soon for Normandy four talks, the TASS news agency reported. The French Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement that the conditions were “now in place for holding soon in Paris a meeting of heads of state and government under the Normandy format, with the aim of progressing on the path to a lasting solution to the conflict in Ukraine.” Former President Petro Poroshenko, who lost in a landslide to Mr. Zelenskyy in Ukraine’s presidential election in April, said the agreement was in fact a “capitulation to Russia.” The agreement is “playing into Russia’s hands” because Ukraine has committed to holding the local election but did not receive any guarantees that it would regain control of all of its border with Russia, Mr. Poroshenko told reporters in Kyiv on October 2. Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko also slammed the deal as a “direct threat to the national security, territorial integrity, and sovereignty of our country,” according to a statement released by her Batkivshchyna party.
Former Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Andriy Parubiy said he would push for hearings into the agreement, accusing the Zelenskyy administration of not seeking input from society at large. Meanwhile, protesters assembled outside the presidential office building in Kyiv late on October 1 to protest the decision. Besides Kyiv, Ukrainian media reported that protests against the deal were also held in other Ukrainian cities, including Lviv, Kharkiv and Mariupol. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by UNIAN, TASS and Interfax)

 

Sentsov meets with Macron in Strasbourg

French President Emmanuel Macron has met with Oleh Sentsov, the Ukrainian filmmaker who was held in Russian prisons for more than five years on charges observers called politically motivated. The encounter took place on October 1 in the French city of Strasbourg, where the French president addressed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Mr. Sentsov was one of dozens of prisoners swapped between Ukraine and Russia on September 7. The director has since vowed to make films again, champion the rights of prisoners in Russian jails and “struggle to counteract [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s regime that wants, in the first place, to enslave Ukraine.” At a joint news conference with Mr. Macron, he said: “Right now, my work is here with you. I have not chosen this work, the work has chosen me.” Mr. Macron noted that there were more prisoners waiting to return home, adding: “We owe them the strength of our commitment toward dialogue and reconciliation on our continent.” (RFE/RL, with reporting by Reuters and AFP)

 

Volker, Yovanovitch agree to testify

Two officials named in the whistleblower complaint related to Ukraine have agreed to provide depositions to three Democratic-led congressional committees as part of an impeachment probe into U.S. President Donald Trump. Former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker was to appear before the House committees behind closed doors on October 3, American news outlets reported. Former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was to appear before the panels on October 11. A whistleblower complaint released the previous week detailed Mr. Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, asking him to investigate former Vice-President Joe Biden who is a political rival of the U.S. president. The unidentified whistleblower accused Trump of pressuring the Ukrainian president and of soliciting foreign interference in exchange for personal gain. Mr. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and called the inquiry “the greatest scam in the history of American politics.” Last week Mr. Volker resigned when it emerged that he had followed up with Ukrainian officials a day after the Trump-Zelenskyy call. (RFE/RL, with reporting by the Daily Beast, Reuters and AP)

 

Senior Ukrainian security official quits

A senior Ukrainian security official submitted his resignation before President Volodymyr Zelenskyy began a visit to the United States this week, the president’s office says. “I confirm the information about my resignation,” Oleksandr Danylyuk, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), wrote on Facebook on September 27. Mr. Danylyuk, who was appointed after President Zelenskyy took office in May, gave no reason for his decision. He said he would stay in his post until the president had signed off on the decision. The Presidential Office earlier said Mr. Danylyuk had sent his resignation letter before Mr. Zelenskyy traveled to the United States to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “The president will consider it after returning to Kyiv,” a statement said. According to a decree published on the official website of the Presidential Office on September 30, Mr. Zelenskyy has dismissed Mr. Danylyuk. The NSDC secretary’s surprise resignation may have been triggered by Mr. Zelenskyy’s hesitation to break ties with the powerful oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky and take a clear position on the fate of the country’s largest lender PrivatBank, AFP reported. Mr. Danylyuk had served as finance minister under President Zelenskyy’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, and oversaw the nationalization of the country’s largest lender PrivatBank in 2016. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by Reuters and AFP)

 

Ukraine probes ex-chief prosecutor

Ukrainian investigators say they have launched a criminal probe into former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko over alleged ties to illegal gambling operations. A state investigation bureau spokeswoman on October 1 said criminal proceedings had been opened “over suspicions of abuse of power and malfeasance” in Mr. Lutsenko’s office “by facilitating illegal gambling businesses.” Mr. Lutsenko, who left his post in August, denied any wrongdoing, saying on his Facebook page that “you need to have a rich imagination” to accuse him of links to illegal gambling. His name appeared in a whistleblower report about U.S. President Donald Trump and his dealings with Ukraine, but the complaint against Mr. Lutsenko did not indicate a connection with the U.S. case. In a July 25 telephone call Mr. Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate the Bidens. During the call, Trump praised Mr. Lutsenko as a good prosecutor and suggested he keep his position. Investigators in Kyiv opened the case against Mr. Lutsenko following a request by a senior lawmaker in Mr. Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party. Authorities are required to open cases if asked to do so by members of Parliament. Mr. Lutsenko served in his post in 2016-2019. He resigned in August after the newly elected president said he wanted the prosecutor general to be “100 percent my person, my candidate.” (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by Reuters, Interfax Ukraine and AFP)

 

Journalists demand apology from Mendel

Ukraine’s main union of journalists has called on the Presidential Office and its spokeswoman to issue a formal apology to journalists from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and to alter their treatment of journalists. The National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) on September 28 specifically mentioned presidential spokeswoman Iuliia Mendel, who had been shown shoving or pulling aside journalists who approach President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “The press secretary of the president has no right to physically interfere in the work of journalists,” NUJU head Serhiy Tomilenko said on social media. “Journalists shouldn’t have to put up with behavior associated with either friendly hugs or shoving and pulling.” In one episode, journalist Serhiy Andrushko from RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service stood waiting for the president and his office head, Andriy Bohdan, near the main entrance to the presidential office building. When Mr. Zelenskyy approached, Ms. Mendel was seen intercepting Mr. Andrushko as he started to ask a question, shoving him aside. In response, Ms. Mendel denied pushing the journalist, saying she was concerned about the president’s safety and was trying to protect Mr. Zelenskyy’s “personal space.” On September 13, Ms. Mendel shoved aside RFE/RL’s Kyiv correspondent Christopher Miller when he started talking to Mr. Zelenskyy at a prestigious yearly conference in Kyiv devoted to Ukraine’s European aspirations and prospects. Since getting elected on April 22, President Zelenskyy has not given an open news conference, despite numerous promises. In August, his presidential office head, Mr. Bohdan, said “We don’t need journalists to talk to people.” Mr. Bohdan also said, “as our election campaign has proved, we communicate with society without mediators, without journalists.” (RFE/RL)

 

Germany recognizes Donbas passports

Germany affixes visas into “passports” issued by Russia to residents of the temporarily occupied areas of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, without making a distinction between Russian passports and these “documents,” the German tabloid newspaper Bild reported on September 24. According to the report, this is stated in a response to a request from Member of Parliament Renata Alt from Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP), who is also the rapporteur of the FDP’s parliamentary group for Ukraine and Russia. “The German government makes no distinction between regular Russian passports and those that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has been distributing in eastern Ukraine since April,” the article reads. This is despite the fact that top-ranking German officials have strongly criticized Mr. Putin’s decree, saying that it violates the sovereignty of Ukraine and contradicts the objectives of the Minsk agreements. “At the same time, it is apparently easily possible to affix a visa into a Russian passport that Putin has been issuing in eastern Ukraine!” Alt told Bild. In her opinion, “the federal government is undermining all efforts to de-escalate the situation and achieve peace in Ukraine.” According to the article, almost 100,000 visas have been issued by the German authorities to holders of Russian passports since April. However, it is unclear how many visas were affixed into Russian passports issued to residents of occupied Donbas. (Ukrinform)

 

Talks on gas transit inconclusive

With winter approaching, Russia and Ukraine have held a third round of European Union-mediated talks in Brussels about the transit of Russian natural gas to Europe. Moscow and Kyiv are negotiating a new long-term agreement on gas flows upon which the EU partially relies on, before the current deal expires in January. After the September 19 meeting, attended by the Ukrainian and Russian energy ministers and the heads of their biggest gas companies, EU Energy Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said that “a certain sense of urgency was really present in the room.” Mr. Sefcovic said the sides had “agreed in principle that the future contract will be based on EU law and on EU rules.” Agreement must still be found on the duration of the contract, transit volumes and tariffs, according to the EU official. At stake is about $3 billion in annual gas transit fees that Ukraine usually gets from Russia for transmitting gas to EU countries. However, these flows could diminish or stop altogether as Moscow pursues the Nord Stream 2 project to build a pipeline under the Baltic Sea, bypassing Ukraine, that could go online as soon as spring 2020. Kyiv entered the gas talks in Brussels supporting the EU’s proposal to receive at least 60 billion cubic meters (bcm) of flows a year, or about 75 percent of what Russia sent through Ukraine last year. The meeting came a day after the Ukrainian government passed a resolution to separate the country’s 38,000-kilometer gas-pipeline network from state-run oil and gas conglomerate Naftogaz. From January 1, a new state-owned entity will handle gas transit through Ukraine to eliminate possible conflicts of interest and increase transparency on the energy market. As a member of the EU’s Energy Community, Ukraine is committed to abide by EU energy regulations. “We have created an independent operator in full compliance with European [Union] legislation,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk said on social media on September 18. “This will open up the opportunity to attract investment in the Ukrainian gas transmission system.” Naftogaz will retain gas storage facilities and a financial interest in the new gas transit operator. As part of the sale, Naftogaz will receive installments from the new operator over the next 10 to 15 years. Last year, Ukraine’s gas transit operator accounted for 45 percent of Naftogaz’s operating cash flows, or nearly $1 billion. It is connected to pipeline systems in neighboring Russia, Belarus, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova. Kyiv also came to Brussels in a better negotiating position having stored nearly 20 bcm of natural gas in preparation for winter. Kyiv hasn’t bought gas directly from Russia since 2015 after Moscow the previous year sent troops into Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and subsequently took it over while backing separatists in eastern Ukraine. Instead, Ukraine relies on home-produced gas and so-called reverse flows from Europe that is essentially Russian gas that Ukraine sends and buys back. After the talks in Brussels, the energy ministers of Russia and Ukraine, Aleksandr Novak and Oleksiy Orzhe, said the sides had agreed to meet again by the end of October. (RFE/RL)

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