All news

Ambassador’s untouchables: Poroshenko in hot seat over prosecutor’s claims against envoy

Earlier, Ukraine's general prosecutor said in an interview that in his first meeting with the US Ambassador to Ukraine, she handed him a list of "untouchable" individuals that should not be prosecuted

KIEV, March 21. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko should either dismiss General Prosecutor Yuri Lutsenko or confirm his accusations against US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, Deputy Chairwoman of the Verkhovna Rada Oksana Syroyid said on Thursday.

"President Poroshenko this morning can only have two official documents - it’s either some information that will confirm the claims General Prosecutor Yuri Lutsenko has made or a statement for the Parliament on Lutsenko’s dismissal from the post of General Prosecutor," she wrote on Facebook.

Earlier, Lutsenko said in an interview with the US-based The Hill.tv channel that in his first meeting with the US Ambassador to Ukraine, she handed him a list of ‘untouchable’ individuals that should not be prosecuted. According to Lutsenko, he said that "it is inadmissible " and that "nobody in this country, neither our president nor our parliament nor our ambassador, will stop me from prosecuting whether there is a crime."

Moreover, he lamented that his agency hadn’t gotten the $4 million that the US Embassy in Ukraine had promised to allocate to his office. Lustenko said the funds were "never received."

In response to these remarks, the US Embassy in Ukraine slammed Lutsenko’s allegation about receiving a list of "untouchables" as false, and the State Department branded his claim as "an outright fabrication.".