Past week, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko gave a press conference, the first in this year. This time there were noticeably fewer amateurish questions from journalists, which is a good sign. Obviously, Ukrainian journalists are maturing for a serious dialog. It is also good that the guarantor of the Constitution is ready to answer these questions and does not reject this format of communicating with the country.
We last met with Mr. Poroshenko in 2014. A Den journalist inquired about his pre-election promise to sell all his businesses except for the Channel 5. Now, 13 months on, Mr. Poroshenko continues to reap profits from (not only) “candy.” Incidentally, a Den reader suggested that, instead of selling his company, Mr. Poroshenko hand over all his Roshen profits to the Pension Fund during his presidency – the wolves are sated and the sheep intact. But Mr. Poroshenko decided that transferring control to a foreign trust fund was a better idea. As the president explained at the abovementioned press conference, he has no influence on the assets (“I cannot even receive information on their condition”), but he knows only too well that these assets fetch money onto the accounts of no other than Mr. Poroshenko. And the question we asked was not so much about the conflict of interests as about the reputation of him and the state he leads.
But forget that “candy” if it is so dear to Mr. Poroshenko that even reputation is cheaper. As the president’s spokesman Sviatoslav Tseholko did not give Den’s journalist the floor at the press conference, we print the questions in our newspaper.
Question No.1: “secret diplomacy” – an addition to the question of the newspaper Segodnia correspondent about a meeting with the Russian politician Boris Gryzlov, leader of the United Russia party. It follows from Mr. Poroshenko’s answer that he approves the foreign minister’s decision to flout the resolution the Cabinet adopted after two years of bitter debates and “open the sky” to a Russian airplane that brought to Ukraine none other than a politician against whom the EU and the US have imposed sanctions because of us. What makes Mr. Poroshenko so sure that citizens of his country and the world, including Russia, will respect us and our laws if our own leadership flouts them? First we bungled for a long time about imposing sanctions against Russia and then, a mere three months later, we ourselves thwarted them. What kept the Russian politician, who is not allowed to enter any civilized country because he was implicated in a special operation to ruin Ukraine’s sovereignty, from seeing in Minsk those he saw in Kyiv? Or has the Ukrainian govenment cut budgetary public expendutures so much that it is impossible to find money for sending officials on a business trip?
Question No.2: secret guarantees. Two big Ukrainian businessmen have announced in the past year that they received special guarantees from Mr. Poroshenko. Dmytro Firtash did so in Vienna’s Land Court, citing his meeting with Mr. Poroshenko on the eve of the 2014 presidential elections, and Ihor Kolomoisky – at the meeting when he resigned as chairman of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Administration. So the question is: why and with whom did Mr. Poposhenko fly to Vienna to see Firtash and what did he promise him? And what deals is Kolomoisly speaking about?
The president partly answerd this question at the press conference, saying loudly: “I will only be making deals with the Ukrainian people... I have made no deals with oligarchs.” Formally, both Kolomoisky and Firtash are also part of the Ukrainian nation.
Question No.3: is Ukraine documenting all the crimes the Russian military have committed on its territory over this time? How come Kuchma signed the agreements which say “first the elections, then the border”?
Here is the question that arose during the press coinference, when Mr. Poroshenko was telling Pavlo Sheremeta about his “relationship” with Saakashvili: Mr. President, why on earth does the Odesa oblast governor have a private office (!) at the Presidential Administration and what did he do there past week (for you are saying you saw him with your own eyes) if his workplace is hundreds of kilometers away?!
We consider this material an informational question and will be waiting for an answer.
THE PRESIDENT’S CHIEF MESSAGES
• This country held its ground and created preconditions for development – it is the main result of 2015.
• The aggression against Ukraine resulted in an economic crisis that is more and more engulfing Russia.
• In 2015 we established new law-enforcement bodies, such as police, the National Anticorruption Bureau, and the anticorruption prosecution service.
• In 2015 all the 28 EU member states decided to prolong sanctions against Russia because the aggressor failed to carry out the Minsk agreements.
• Ukraine has gone off the “gas needle.” Ukraine’s energy system is now integrated into that of Europe.
• Establishing peace in the Donbas and returning it to Ukraine are the top priorities for 2016. Among other priorities is struggle for regaining Crimea. We will propose the “Geneva plus” mechanism to de-occupy the peninsula with participation of our EU and US partners and perhaps the signatories of the Budapest Memorandum.
• We will not allow the Minsk Agreements to be revised.
• Like in the past year, the national military-industrial complex will receive as many orders as possible for the most up-to-date armaments.
• The Ukrainian army’s 2016 budget is 57 billion hryvnias. We are increasing military salaries. A mobilized serviceman will be paid at least 7,000 hryvnias outside the ATO zone. Conscription is not to be abolished.
• I am grateful to volunteers for transparent army procurements.
• I am going to propose soon the last bills that speed up introduction of a visa-free regime, including one on electronic declaration of incomes by officials.
• Unlike many, I need no financial advisors or “wallets.” All we have to do is abolish parliamentary immunity and vote for the bill I introduced in parliament.
• On the eve of the Minsk meeting, I met Tripartite Contact Group representatives in order, first of all, to emphasize that Ukraine’s position remains unchanged – we demand that clear-cut dates be fixed for what we are supposed to do.
• I stress that I will meet anybody in order to get back the Ukrainian heroes Savchenko and Sentsov, the Ukrainian hostages held on the occupied territories and in Russia, and to achieve complete front-line silence so that Ukrainian positions do not come under fire again.
• The goal is to separate oligarchs from public money, the government, and politics so that they turn into common entrepreneurs and work in the usual conditions.
• I would like to express my satisfaction with the National Bank president’s performance in the system. We expect a dramatic fall of the inflation rate in 2016.
• Under the Constitution, the president does not dismiss or appoint the Cabinet – it is up to the coalition to do so. The coalition is soon to hold a serious debate on the formation of a government.
