From RFE/RL's news desk:
Poroshenko Fires Close Ally Amid Smuggling Scandal
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has fired a close ally, Oleh Hladkovskyy, from the post of first deputy chairman of the National Security and Defense Council amid allegations that Hladkovskyy's son was involved in smuggling spare parts of military equipment from Russia.
Poroshenko wrote on Twitter on March 4 that Hladkovskyy was also fired from the post of the chief of the interministerial commission for policies on military and technical cooperation and export control.
Poroshenko's move comes a week after media outlet Bihus.Info's program Nashi Hroshi (Our Money) alleged that Hladkovskyy's son, Ihor, organized a ring to smuggle spare military-equipment parts from Russia in 2015, a year after Moscow seized Ukraine's Crimea region and threw its support behind militant pro-Russia separatists in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The report alleged that state defense facilities purchased the smuggled spare parts from private companies linked to Ihor Hladkovskyy and his friends at highly inflated prices.
It claimed that Ukroboronprom, the state concern that supervises defense industry production facilities, knew the origin of the smuggled parts but agreed to buy them.
The report also alleged that Ihor Hladkovskyy and his two associates illegally earned at least 250 million hryvnyas ($9.2 million) by smuggling the items from Russia through three major private firms, one of which belonged to Poroshenko at the time.
Poroshenko, a pro-Western tycoon who came to power after Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia in early 2014, is trying to overcome a steep drop in public support in order to win reelection in the upcoming March 31 presidential poll.
A day after the investigative report was broadcast on YouTube on February 25, Poroshenko suspended Oleh Hladkovskyy from his post and two days later announced that a probe has been launched into the allegations.
The election comes amid persistent economic challenges in the country and an ongoing war in eastern Ukraine against Russia-backed separatists.
Here is today's map of the latest situation in the Donbas conflict zone according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. (CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)
