President Petro Poroshenko fired the scandalous deputy head of Foreign Intelligence Service Serhiy Semochko, who gained notoriety after journalists discovered in 2018 that his Russia-connected family grew vastly rich during his time in office.
Poroshenko announced the firing of Semochko on April 14 as he was speaking in front of his supporters at the NSC Olimpiyskiy sports arena.
Poroshenko, who is trying to get re-elected in the April 21 second-round election, challenged his contender Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the leader of the race, to debate him at the stadium on April 14. Zelenskiy set a different date, April 19, so the April 14 event at Olympiyskiy turned into a rally of Poroshenko’s supporters.
After Poroshenko came second in the first-round vote on March 31 with 16 percent, and Zelenskiy led it with 30 percent, the incumbent focused his campaign on admitting the mistakes of his first term. Picking the wrong people for top posts was one mistake that Poroshenko has mentioned.
Semochko, who denies any wrongdoing, has become the symbol of the “wrong people” hired and promoted by Poroshenko.
In October, journalists of Bihus.Info investigative reporting project discovered that Semochko’s family members own lots of expensive real estate, have connections to Russia and supposedly hold Russian passports, instigating suspicious of corruption and security concerns.
When the report aired, Semochko denied wrongdoing and said his family had no Russian links. State Security Service said they would investigate the claims but there was no reaction from Poroshenko at the time.
But six months after the report, at a meeting with anti-corruption activists on April 6, a week after the first-round presidential vote, Poroshenko promised to fire Semochko.
A day later, Bihus.Info published a photo of Semochko entering Poroshenko’s administration in Kyiv.
