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Leader of Ukraine’s far-rightwing party demands President sell his business

An oligarch cannot hold the post of Ukraine’s president, Lyashko said

KIEV, March 26. /TASS/. Leader of Ukraine’s far-rightwing Radical Party, Oleh Lyashko, has appealed to President Petro Poroshenko to fulfill his pre-election promise and to sell all of his business assets to other owners.

"An oligarch cannot hold the post of Ukraine’s president," Lyashko said in a statement in connection with the recent highly controversial resignation of the country’s richest oligarch, Igor Kolomoisky, from the office of governor of the vital south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region.

"It is no way for the oligarchs like Kolomoisky, Firtash, Lyovochkin, Akhmetov, Pinchuk, Grigorishin, Yeremeyev and others to reign in parliament and in government because it was the oligarchies that destroyed our country," Lyashko’s statement said.

A document placed on the Radical Party’s official website said the decree on Kolomoisky’s dismissal from the post signaled the start of a highly needed process of removing the oligarchs from state power.

"And to make the process irreversible, Poroshenko must fulfill his pre-election promises and sell all of his business, including the confectionery factory in Lipetsk (a Russian city 400 km to the south of Moscow - TASS)," the statement said.

President Poroshenko signed a decree on March 25 to fire Igor Kolomoisky from the post of Dnipropetrovsk region governor. The document said Poroshenko had thus entertained Kolomoisky’s resignation request.

The conflict between the omnipotent oligarch, who is known to be one of the major sponsors of the antiterrorist operation in the country’s south-eastern regions, and the Kiev government broke out last week after a dismissal the CEO of the crucial state company Ukrtransnafta. The person had been broadly viewed as Kolomoisky’s proxy.

Shortly after the dismissal, the Verkhovna Rada passed a law on joint-stock companies that deprived Kolomoisky of control over another oil industry major asset, Ukrnafta. This was followed by a seizure of Ukrtransnafta’s building by a group of paramilitaries armed with automatic rifles.

The armed action lasted several hours and the seizure was led by Kolomoisky personally.

At the same time, several dozen armed men took control of Ukrnafta’s office.

Valentin Nalivaichenko, the chief of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) accused Kolomoisky of supporting armed gangs and President Poroshenko said he would put an end to "marionette armies".