Lawyers for former president Petro Poroshenko are suing President Volodymyr Zelensky.
They accused him of concealing and tampering with the “Medvedchuk tapes,” a series of audio recordings that contain damning evidence about oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk and Poroshenko.
Investigative journalism group Bihus.info published the recordings throughout May and June. In them, Medvedchuk is heard saying that he represented Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interests in 2014 peace talks with Ukraine.
Medvedchuk also discussed lobbying on behalf of a company believed to be controlled by Poroshenko, which wanted to supply power to occupied Crimea.
Additionally, he talked about delaying a prisoner of war exchange with Russia to help Poroshenko stage a publicity stunt with a Ukrainian prisoner.
One of Poroshenko’s lawyers, Igor Golovan, said that the audio was deliberately modified to sabotage Poroshenko’s reputation.
He said that Zelensky’s office may have been involved in selectively leaking the tapes to Bihus and that the journalists have not published all recordings at their disposal, despite saying that they did.
Poroshenko’s lawyers will ask the court to enforce the release of all original recordings and find any concealment to be unlawful.
