Ex-Ukrainian Health Minister Detained On Arrival In Kyiv, Wanted On Fraud Charges
Ukraine's former Health Minister Rayisa Bohatyrova has been detained in Kyiv upon her arrival from the Belarusian capital, Minsk, following five years of self-imposed exile in an unspecified country.
The State Border Guard Service said that Bohatyrova was detained at the Zhulyany airport on August 27.
Bohatyrova served as Ukraine's health minister in the government of President Viktor Yanukovych, who was toppled by pro-European mass protests in 2014 and fled to Russia.
Bohatyrova also left Ukraine after Yanukovych was toppled and in June 2014 was charged in absentia with embezzling 6.5 million hryvnyas ($260,000) of public funds.
Based on reporting by UNIAN and Ukrayinska Pravda
In Ukraine, Top Zelenskiy Aide Is Likely Favorite To Be Next Prime Minister
By RFE/RL
The political party of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will likely offer the post of prime minister to Oleksiy Honcharuk, one of the presidential office’s deputy heads, Reuters reports, citing one of the party’s lawmakers on August 27.
Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg and the Ukrainian online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda both also reported this week that Zelenskiy favors Honcharuk.
"We considered the only candidate – Mr. Honcharuk. We had the possibility to talk to him and ask any questions," Servant of the People party lawmaker Iryna Vereshchuk said on a TV talk show on August 27.
According to the Ukrainian Constitution, the ruling coalition or majority party in parliament appoints the prime minister, as well as cabinet posts, the chief prosecutor, and other positions.
Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party took a solid majority of 254 parliamentary seats in last month’s elections.
On Ukraine’s Independence Day on August 24, the president said he had narrowed the selection down to two people.
"I have to make this decision this week, I have no time to wait,” Zelenskiy said. “I could honestly say…I like a few people. I won’t tell who exactly. I’ll just say there are two."
In July, Zelenskiy said he wants the prime minister to be a professional economist and an “absolutely independent person who has never been a prime minister, [parliament] speaker, or a leader of any [parliamentary] faction.”
The new parliament gets sworn in on August 29, but the prime minister won’t be named and the cabinet won’t be formed that day, said the next likely speaker of parliament, Dmytro Razumkov, as reported by Interfax.
Honcharuk, 35, spent much of his career as a lawyer, eventually becoming a lead partner at a firm that specializes in real estate development. In 2015 he ran the EU-funded nongovernmental organization BRDO that focused on reforms and advised Stepan Kubiv, the first deputy prime minister during former President Petro Poroshenko’s administration.
Current Finance Minister Oksana Markarova is also a top candidate for prime minister, Zelenskiy told RFE/RL on August 24.
With reporting by Ukrainska Pravda, Bloomberg, Reuters, and Interfax
We are now closing the live blog for today, but we'll be back again tomorrow morning to follow all the latest developments. Until then, you can keep up with all our other Ukraine coverage here.
And speaking of China and Ukraine's defense industry, RFE/RL's Todd Prince has also been looking into an aspect of this story:
Vyacheslav Boguslayev, an 80-year-old Ukrainian tycoon, and his Motor Sich aircraft-engine producer are caught up in the rivalry between the United States and China. Whose hands the company falls into could impact Chinese investment in Ukraine -- as well as U.S. military assistance to Kyiv.
Another news item, this time from the Crimea Desk of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service:
Court In Russia-Annexed Crimea Releases Crimean Tatar Activist On Trial
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine -- A court in Ukraine's Russia-annexed Crimea has released from detention a Crimean Tatar activist, who is on trial for alleged illegal explosive possession and transportation, a charge he has strongly denied.
The Central District Court in Simferopol ruled on August 27 that Edem Bekirov must be released from custody on condition that he will be attending his trial.
The detention center's medical personnel asked the court to release Bekirov due to his medical condition.
Bekirov was arrested in December after a man told Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) that he had asked him to keep 12 kilograms of explosives and ammunition.
Bekirov has denied the accusations, saying they were lies.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled on June 11 that Bekirov must be transferred to a civil hospital because of his health condition.
The Moscow-based Memorial human rights group has declared Bekirov a political prisoner.
Since Russia seized the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014, Russian authorities have prosecuted dozens of Crimean Tatars on various charges.
Rights groups and Western governments have denounced what they describe as a campaign of repression by the Russian-imposed authorities in Crimea who are targeting members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar community and others who have come out against Moscow's takeover of the peninsula.
Russia took control of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 after sending in troops, seizing key facilities, and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by at least 100 countries.
Moscow also backs separatists in a war against government forces that has killed some 13,000 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.