House arrest denied in Sheremet case
A Ukrainian court has rejected a request by a jailed suspect in the high-profile 2016 killing of journalist Pavel Sheremet to be transferred to house arrest. Kyiv’s Shevchenko district court on January 19 ordered Andriy Antonenko to be remanded in pretrial detention. Mr. Sheremet, a Belarusian-born Russian citizen who had made Kyiv his permanent home, was leaving his apartment to head to the studio where he hosted a morning radio show when an improvised explosive device planted under his vehicle exploded on July 20, 2016, killing him. Mr. Antonenko and two other suspects, Yulia Kuzmenko and Yana Duhar, were arrested in December 2019. Ms. Duhar and Ms. Kuzmenko were later transferred to house arrest. The three suspects took part in military operations in different capacities in eastern Ukraine, where government forces have been fighting Russia-backed separatists since April 2014. The Interior Ministry and the National Police have said the group’s goal was “to destabilize the political and social situation in Ukraine” by killing Mr. Sheremet. In January last year, the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office said that additional evidence was needed for the case to go to trial. A leaked tape published by the Brussels-based newspaper EU Observer earlier this month suggested that Belarusian authorities may be behind the killing. (RFE/RL, with reporting by UNIAN and Ukrinform)
Cargo ship sinks in Black Sea
At least two crew members have died and six remain unaccounted for after a Ukrainian-owned cargo ship sank in bad weather in the Black Sea off Turkey. A Ukrainian government spokesman on January 17 said that “five people have been rescued and two bodies have been recovered” from the wreck of the bulk carrier Arvin, which is registered under the flag of the country of Palau. The ship was heading for Bulgaria from Georgia when it sank, officials said. The Black Sea region has been hit by heavy rains, snow and strong winds in recent days. Reports differed on the number of people aboard the ship when it sank. Russia’s Interfax news agency said 12 people were aboard, including two Russians, while a Turkish official put the number at 13. Sinan Guner, governor of northern Turkey’s Bartin Province, said five seamen had been rescued. He added that weather conditions were hampering rescue efforts. “There are high waves, and because of the waves the [rescue] boat can’t see its surroundings. We are trying to reach them with directions from the shore,” Mr. Guner was cited as saying by Turkish news agencies. Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko told AFP that the ship was owned by a Ukrainian firm. He tweeted that five Ukrainians and one “foreigner” had been rescued so far and were hospitalized in satisfactory condition. Tensions remain high in the strategic region. Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula of Crimea has not been recognized by a vast majority of nations and has led to U.S. and EU sanctions against Russia. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by AFP, AP, Reuters, and Interfax)
Bodies found from sunken cargo ship
A Turkish rescue team has found the bodies of four crew members of a Ukrainian-owned cargo ship that sank in bad weather in the Black Sea on January 17, including the vessel’s captain, a Russian citizen. The Russian Embassy in Ankara said on January 18 that the body of the vessel’s captain Vitaly Galenko, a Russian national, had been discovered. Russia’s Federal Agency for Maritime and River Transportation (Rosmorrechflot) said earlier that three more bodies were found from the January 17 maritime disaster. According to Rosmorrechflot, six crew members, including a Russian citizen, had been rescued, while two of 12 crew members of the bulk carrier Arvin were Russian citizens and the rest were Ukrainians. Turkish authorities said on January 17 that there were 13 people aboard the vessel when it encountered bad weather conditions. The ship, registered under the flag of the country of Palau, was heading for Bulgaria from Georgia when it sank, Ukrainian officials said. The Black Sea region has been hit by heavy rains, snow, and strong winds in recent days. According to Ukrainian authorities, the ship was owned by a Ukrainian firm. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by Novaya Gazeta, Hurriyet, and Interfax)
Nuland named to top State Department post
U.S. President Joe Biden has nominated Wendy Sherman, the country’s lead negotiator of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, to be the No. 2 official at the State Department. Mr. Biden also named retired career diplomat Victoria Nuland, who voiced strong support for the popular uprising that pushed Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych from power in 2014, in the department’s third-ranking post. The Biden transition team announced on January 16 that Ms. Sherman, who served as undersecretary of state for political affairs under President Barack Obama, was nominated to be deputy secretary of state. Ms. Nuland, whose past portfolio at the State Department made her a leading Russia official in the Obama administration, was picked as undersecretary for political affairs. As assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, she was the lead U.S. diplomat on the ground in Kyiv and Moscow during the pro-democracy uprising in Ukraine and Russia’s subsequent annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. The seizure of the Ukrainian region by Moscow and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has killed more than 13,200 people since April 2014 have greatly contributed to the dramatic deterioration of relations between Russia and the United States. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is to hold a confirmation hearing on January 19 for Antony Blinken, Mr. Biden’s nominee to be secretary of state. If confirmed, Ms. Sherman and Ms. Nuland would serve under him. (RFE/RL, with reporting by AFP, Reuters, and Bloomberg)
Blinken backed giving Ukraine lethal weapons
President Joe Biden’s secretary of state nominee Antony Blinken said he backed giving Ukraine lethal weapons to defend itself against Russian aggression while serving in the Obama administration. Mr. Obama did not give the green light for deliveries of lethal weapons though. Former President Donald Trump did. However, Mr. Blinken warned U.S. efforts to support Ukraine must include fighting corruption. “We have to help the Ukrainians deal with that too because even if we’re successful in at least helping them keep Russia at bay, if that threat from within continues, then it’s going to be very difficult for them to build a viable democracy,” he said. (Todd Prince of RFE/RL)
Court head suspected of witness tampering
Ukrainian investigators formally notified the head of Ukraine’s constitutional court that he is a suspect in a witness tampering case, the state investigation bureau said on January 19. Ukrainian prosecutors said in December they were investigating Oleksandr Tupytskyi in connection with the suspected bribery of a witness that had taken place in 2018. “I believe that this criminal case is falsified and politically motivated, and the investigation is conducted in violation of the principle of objectivity and impartiality,” Mr. Tupytskyi said in a statement. “I am confident that the purpose of this case is an attempt to prevent me from exercising the power of a judge and the head of the constitutional court … as well as to block the activities of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine,” he said. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration has been locked in a standoff with the top court after it struck down key anti-corruption legislation in October, hobbling Ukraine’s chances of securing foreign aid loans. Mr. Zelenskyy had initially sought to dissolve the court but Parliament restored the anti-corruption legislation as an interim measure in December, paving the way for loan talks to restart with the International Monetary Fund. Mr. Zelenskyy also signed a decree to suspend Mr. Tupytskyi temporarily, which the court said was unconstitutional. Mr. Tupytskyi’s office said in an earlier statement on January 19 that law enforcement officials prevented him from entering the court premises. The court ruled in October against some anti-corruption laws, citing as excessive the punishment for false information on officials’ asset declarations, and also struck down some powers of the main NAZK anti-graft agency. Ukraine’s patchy performance on economic reforms and tackling corruption derailed a $5 billion program agreed last June with the IMF, at a time when its economy is in a sharp downturn due to the coronavirus pandemic. (Natalia Zinets of Reuters)
Ukraine in talks with India on vaccine supply
Ukraine is in talks with Indian medical firm Serum Institute on supplying COVID-19 vaccines, Interfax Ukraine news agency quoted a deputy Ukrainian health minister as saying on January 20. “Negotiations are underway with an Indian manufacturer, Serum Institute, which can produce the American Novovax vaccine and has the ability to produce the AstraZeneca vaccine at the moment,” Interfax quoted Ihor Ivashchenko as saying. He gave no further details. India will initially only ship the AstraZeneca vaccine, made by The Serum Institute, the world’s biggest vaccine maker, which brands the shot as COVISHIELD. Ukraine, which registered more that 1.17 million coronavirus cases and 21,258 deaths, has already agreed to buy some vaccines from China and also expects to secure some under the global COVAX program for poorer countries. (Reuters, with reporting by Pavel Polityuk)
Lowest daily coronavirus tally since September
Ukraine reported 3,034 new coronavirus cases on January 18, its lowest daily tally since the end of September, health minister Maksym Stepanov said. The number of deaths decreased to 67 from 116 the day earlier, he said on Facebook. A strict lockdown would end as scheduled on January 25, the ministry said last week. Ukraine closed schools, restaurants and gyms on January 8. The number of new coronavirus cases dropped in early January to less than 10,000 a day from record levels in mid-December. Ukraine has registered more than 1.16 million coronavirus cases with 20,869 deaths. (Reuters, with reporting by Pavel Polityuk)
OSCE says action needed in east Ukraine
More steps are needed to protect a fragile ceasefire in eastern Ukraine as violations are rising, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde told Reuters during a trip to the region on January 20. Ms. Linde was on her first visit to Ukraine since taking over as the rotating head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which monitors the conflict in the Donbass region between Ukraine and Russian-backed forces. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected in 2019 on a pledge to end the conflict, which has killed 14,000 people since 2014 and poisoned relations between Kyiv and Moscow. Both sides agreed to a ceasefire in July last year, though there are still military and civilian casualties. A Ukrainian soldier was killed during shelling last week. “There has been a significant reduction in ceasefire violations since the 27th of July when the ceasefire was agreed upon,” Ms. Linde said by phone. “The next step is to try to see if we can find more steps of keeping the ceasefire. Right now, it’s a little bit fragile,” she added. “The incidents are going up.” Ms. Linde said work should continue in the so-called “Normandy” format of talks between Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany. She met Mr. Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba this week. Ukraine suggested in November that the OSCE send 1,500 police to Donbas as a precursor to being able to hold elections in the region. Asked whether the proposal was discussed this week, Ms. Linde said: “There are several proposals on the table, and we are taking all of them seriously, and hopefully some can go forward.” After Moscow’s annexation of the Crimea peninsula in 2014, pro-Russian separatists rose up across a belt of eastern Ukraine. Kyiv blames Moscow for engineering the uprising, and providing troops and arms that led to its escalation into a full-blown war. Moscow denies the accusation. (Matthias Williams of Reuters)