The former Ukrainian president defies the threat of arrest by fighting with his heir

Author: Sergiy Karazy

WARSAW (Reuters) – Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Sunday that he planned to return to Ukraine on Monday, despite the threat of arrest in a case of treason, despite the fact that he was under the supervision of allies of current President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Poroshenko’s return confronts Zelensky’s government at a time when Ukraine is preparing for a potential Russian military offensive, which the critics say is a misjudged distraction, and to ask for help from Western allies.

Western diplomats have called for political unity in Ukraine before Poroshenko arrives.

Poroshenko is being investigated for alleged treason linked to funding Russian separatist fighters while he was in office in 2014-15. His party accused Zelensky of a reckless attempt to silence the political opposition.

“If you ask me if I will be arrested, definitely not. Not because I’m so sure but because I have no reason, absolutely zero … I’m going back to Ukraine to fight for Ukraine, not to fight Zelenski.” Poroshenko told reporters in Warsaw.

Zelensky’s administration has turned away from the investigation, saying prosecutors and the judiciary are independent and accusing Poroshenko of believing he was above the law.

On Friday, Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, dismissed suggestions that Zelenskiy was acting as a former Russian-backed president, and that Yulia Tymoshenko had been jailed in December 2010 for her political rival Viktor Yanukovych.

Ukraine and its allies have sounded the alarm about tens of thousands of Russian soldiers gathered near its borders.

With no progress on diplomacy last week, the U.S. said on Friday that it was preparing an excuse for Russia’s attack, something the Kremlin called “baseless.”

“It seems to me more than ever that all Ukrainian political leaders should show unity by avoiding actions that could be polarized,” British Ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons said in a tweet on Saturday.

“We are calling for the unity of all democratic forces to protect Ukraine … I am absolutely optimistic about the possibility of such a union of democratic and responsible opposition forces,” Poroshenko said.

Poroshenko’s return from Warsaw to Kiev on Monday coincides with the new German foreign minister’s whistleblowing, and he will then travel to Moscow for talks on Tuesday.

A confectionery tycoon and one of Ukraine’s richest citizens, he was elected head of the pro-Western Poroshenko government after the 2014 Maidan street protests over the ouster of Yanukovych.

Relations between Ukraine and Russia collapsed after Russia’s capture of Crimea and support for separatist fighters began in the same year in the war in eastern Ukraine.

Zelensky overthrew Poroshenko in the 2019 general election to fight corruption and reduce the influence of the oligarchs in the former Soviet Republic.

Prosecutors asked a Ukrainian court in December to arrest Poroshenko on bail of $ 1 billion ($ 37 million).