That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for March 6, 2019. Check back here tomorrow morning for more of our ongoing coverage.
U.S. Envoy Urges Ukraine To Fire Top Anticorruption Official, Seriously Tackle Graft
By RFE/RL
The U.S. ambassador to Kyiv has called on Ukrainian authorities to fire the country’s special anticorruption prosecutor and tackle its corruption problem.
In a speech in Kyiv on March 5, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch said that the government's efforts have "not yet resulted in the anticorruption or rule-of-law reforms that Ukrainians expect or deserve."
In the remarks, released on March 6, Yovanovitch said that the chief of the Special Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office, Nazar Kholodnytskyy, should be replaced to ensure the integrity of Ukraine’s anticorruption institutions.
"Nobody who has been recorded coaching suspects on how to avoid corruption charges can be trusted to prosecute those very same cases," the U.S. ambassador said.
Kholodnytskyy has been accused of assisting officials suspected of corruption to avoid prosecution.
Speaking to several media outlets on March 6, Kholodnytskyy refused to comment on what he called "interference into another country's internal affairs."
In July 2018, Ukraine's Disciplinary Commission for Prosecutor's Qualification (KDPK) rejected a request by the Prosecutor-General's Office to fire Kholodnytskyy and ruled to reprimand him.
Yovanovitch made the critical remarks a day before U.S. Undersecretary of State David Hale's visit to Kyiv, during which he is expected to discuss Ukraine's anticorruption efforts, among other things.
Last month, Ukraine's Constitutional Court overturned a law criminalizing illicit enrichment, raising concerns about the Ukrainian government's resolve to fight endemic corruption.
After the ruling, the National Anticorruption Bureau announced that it was forced to close 65 corruption cases under investigation.
Last week, a Ukrainian media outlet published an investigation into alleged embezzlement schemes in the country's military industry that involved members of President Petro Poroshenko's inner circle.
Referring to the report, Yovanovitch called for a complete audit of a state-owned military procurement company and greater transparency for defense contracts.
Western officials say corruption hurts Ukraine's chances of throwing off the influence of Russia, which seized the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and backs separatists whose war with Kyiv has killed about 13,000 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.