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The former president of Ukraine returned to the country last week while under investigation for treason that his supporters say is unfounded and politically motivated by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration—his chief rival.
The reappearance of Petro Poroshenko, who is the country’s leading opposition figure, threatened to further complicate the domestic turmoil in the country while Russian forces took positions along the country’s eastern border.
Poroshenko has been away from Kyiv for about a month, and when he arrived on a flight from Warsaw, he was greeted by thousands of supporters, some holding signs saying, “Keep calm, I’ll be back,” The Washington Post reported.
A Ukrainian judge on Wednesday turned back a request by prosecutors to detain the former president on the treason charge. He insists that he is innocent and the charges are simply a political ploy.
Thousands cheered outside the courtroom when bail was set at $35 million—a pittance for the former leader worth $1.6 billion.
After the hearing, Poroshenko said the court’s decision is “not yet a victory” but the “first step in the right direction.” Zelensky has insisted that his office did not interfere with the proceedings.
Poroshenko is still a very popular figure and Zelensky’s top challenger in the 2024 presidential elections. There are concerns that his arrival in the country threatens to destabilize Kyiv while Russia seems to be gearing up for war.
“We will show that they are committing treason against the state, at the moment when Ukraine needs unity to strongly resist the actions of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” Poroshenko said, according to the Post.
Presidential Reality Show
Zelensky, a former comedian (and still one) who played Ukraine’s president in a popular TV show, won the actual Ukrainian presidential race trouncing the sitting president Poroshenko with 73 percent of the vote in the 2019 elections.
Selling more fear and hysteria, the word from the West is that Russian President Putin would welcome a fight between the two Ukrainian presidential challengers.
Without providing a shred of evidence, the United Kingdom’s Foreign Office on Saturday alleged that Putin is aiming to install a pro-Kremlin figure to take over in Kyiv, according to the BBC.
The U.K. identified the person as Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev… who has about a 7 percent popularity rating and denied he was a candidate. The U.K. intel whore did not specify how it believes Putin will implement the strategy.
“The information being released today shines a light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin thinking, Liz Truss, the U.K.’s foreign secretary, said, according to the BBC. “Russia must de-escalate, end its campaigns of aggression and disinformation, and pursue a path of diplomacy.”
Murayev laughed off the suggestion and said that it seems the British Foreign Office is “confused.”
“It isn’t very logical. I’m banned from Russia. Not only that but money from my father’s firm there has been confiscated,” he said.
Vasyl Filipchuck, a former spokesman for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, told The Guardian that a pro-Kremlin candidate would not win the presidency and the only way said candidate would be put in office is the result of a bloody and long war.
“This scenario would only work with a fully-fledged invasion taking over Kyiv,” he said. “The city would be decimated, its land burned and a million people would flee. We have 100,000 people in the capital with arms, who will fight…There may be a plan, but it’s bullshit.”
TREND FORECAST: To further escalate tensions, yesterday, NATO said it would send more fighter jets and ships to Eastern Europe bordering Russia, despite a warning by Russian President Vladimir Putin that an increased military build-up in the region by the military alliance would cross a “red line.”
Now, with Denmark sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and four F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania, Spain sending ships to join NATO naval forces, and France deploying troops to Romania… that “red line” has been crossed.
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE: If China or Russia sent military forces, ships and planes to neighboring European or United States countries, there would be “national” outrage. But with the U.S. deploying troops in some 70 nations with over 800 bases surrounding those of Russia and China, and NATO expanding across Eastern Europe, that is ideologically permissible.