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Nationalists hurl flares at Poroshenko’s home, demand his arrest for corruption

According to media reports, there were some hundred activists in front of Poroshenko’s home in the village of Kozin

KIEV, June 6. /TASS/. Nationalists are picketing the country home of Ukraine’s former president, Pyotr Poroshenko, in support of the demand for his arrest, the television channel 112 Ukraine said on Thursday.

About a hundred activists in front of Poroshenko’s home in the village of Kozin are chanting "Poroshenko - Behind Bars!" and demanding the former president and his close associates, the Gladkovsky family, be brought to justice for corruption in the state-run defense industry concern Ukroboronprom. The protesters carrying flags of Ukraine and nationalist organizations are burning flares and tires. Pickets have placed loudspeakers in front of the central entrance to Poroshenko’s estate. Ukrainian patriotic songs are being played.

The coordinator of the organization Civil Control - Honest Country, Vladislav Litvinchuk, has said the demonstrators will make the protest action open-ended, if the authorities delay the investigation of Poroshenko’s involvement in the embezzlement row in Ukroboronprom.

"We will stay here day and night," Litvinchuk said.He claims that during his presidency Poroshenko increased his personal wealth 18 times.

"Very little time has passed after the election, but everybody seems to have forgotten who he is," Litvinchuk said. The protesters’ main demand is the Prosecutor-General’s Office and the Interior Ministry investigate the Poroshenko case properly.

"Quite a few complaints have been lodged against him, but the civil servants take no action," he said.

The activists say they are going to stage a similar demonstration in front of the Gladkovsky family. The state concern Ukroboronprom was in the center of a corruption scandal last February, which resulted in a considerable fall of Poroshenko’s popularity rating ahead of the presidential election.

A media inquiry found that Igor Gladkovsky, son of the National Security and Defense Council’s secretary, who is a member of Poroshenko’s inner circle, had allegedly been involved in multi-million fraudulent schemes. The media says Gladkovsky and his partners had arranged for supplying smuggled Russian space parts to Ukrainian defense enterprises at grossly overcharged prices. After the scandalous report the Ukrainian government ordered international auditing of Ukroboronprom.