A Kyiv court released former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on his own recognizance on Jan. 19 during a bail hearing on treason charges the current lawmaker is facing.
The incumbent president’s main political opponent was ordered to surrender his international travel documents, Pechersk District Court Justice Oleksiy Sokolov said while delivering the ruling.
Prosecutors had asked that Poroshenko, 56, be placed in jail for 60 days during the pre-trial phase or post bail at 1 billion hryvnias ($35 million). The former president’s defense team, which has rejected the treason allegations as “political persecution,” had asked for him to be set free of the charges.
The ruling came after the initial hearing lasted for nearly 12 hours on Jan. 17 but was adjourned, following five-hours of deliberation by the judge, whom Poroshenko had appointed to the bench five years ago.
Neither the judge nor Poroshenko’s defense asked for a recusal.
Poroshenko had on that day returned to Ukraine following what he called a one-month “diplomatic” trip abroad with stopovers in Turkey, Brussels and Poland to harness support amid Russia’s mounting aggression toward Ukraine.
He had suddenly left the country on Dec. 20 immediately after officials attempted to serve him with a subpoena.
The same court froze Poroshenko’s assets on Jan. 6 based on the treason charges that say he facilitated the procurement of power-generating coal from mining companies in Russian-controlled parts of the country’s two easternmost regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in 2014-2015.
That period is considered the most intense phase of the Russo-Ukrainian war when Russia had already forcibly seized Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and invaded areas of the two easternmost regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
More than 14,000 people have been killed, according to the United Nations, and 1.5 million more internally displaced leading to Europe’s largest internal migration of people since World War II.
Russia has lately threatened to escalate Europe’s only current shooting war if its demands from December are not met that include Ukraine never join NATO and cease all cooperation with the 30-member defense alliance.
In their probe, the State Bureau of Investigations (DBR) say then-Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn and pro-Russian member of parliament Volodymyr Medvedchuk conspired in the scheme in collusion with Russian officials as well as a businessman – Serhiy Kuzyar – with close ties to the Russian proxy administrations in eastern Ukraine.
Demchyshyn’s whereabouts are unknown and has been placed on an international wanted list.
Medvedchuk, whose eldest daughter’s godfather is Russian President Vladimir Putin, has dismissed the charges as political pressure. He currently is under house arrest on.
Kyuzar’s whereabouts are unknown.
Poroshenko consistently polls as President Volodymyr Zelensky’s main rival for the country’s executive seat.
Zelensky, a former comic actor with no prior political experience, convincingly won the 2019 presidential election in a run-off with Poroshenko. The latter’s European Solidarity party is the fourth biggest faction in parliament with Zelensky’s Servant of the People with a ruling majority.
Poroshenko and his supporters claim the charges against him are politically motivated and today, as on Jan. 17 rallied supporters to call for the removal of what they dub as the “Zelensky band.”
The president has so far refrained from commenting on these developments and appears, on the advice of foreign allies, to have refrained from exacerbating the situation.
Bloomberg estimates Poroshenko’s net worth is $860 million. After a law was passed in September to reduce the influence of tycoons that goes into effect this March, Poroshenko transferred his core assets to his son, Oleksiy Poroshenko. They include one Europe’s biggest confectionaries and two national television stations.
