KIEV, September 12. /TASS/. Ukraine’s notorious Mirotvorets (Peacekeeper) website has included former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader of the All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" political party, into its database.
The ‘Peacekeeper’ website accused Tymoshenko of illegally penetrating Ukraine’s state border, attacking border guards who carried out their duties on protecting the state border, and aiding Georgian ex-president and former Odessa Region’s governor Mikhail Saakashvili in crossing into Ukraine.
Among other reasons for including the politician on the list was that she allegedly manipulated socially important information.
On Sunday evening, Saakashvili and his supporters broke through a police cordon at the Shegeni checkpoint at the Polish-Ukrainian border to cross into Ukraine. During the incident, 22 Ukrainian law enforcement officers were injured. Tymoshenko backed Saakashvili during Sunday’s events.
Police in Lvov, where Saakashvili arrived to meet his party’s supporters, have already launched criminal proceedings into the illegal border crossing. This crime is punishable by up to five years behind bars. Police also launched a criminal investigation into Saakashvili’s resistance to police.
Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko said this incident was unequivocally a legal matter, which does not require any political comments.
Saakashvili, who had been charged with several crimes in Georgia, was granted Ukrainian citizenship in May 2015, which resulted in his Georgian citizenship being revoked. Saakashvili served as Ukraine’s Odessa Region Governor, but in November 2016, he stepped down and set up his own party, criticizing the authorities in power. On July 26, 2017, while Saakashvili was in the United States, Poroshenko stripped him of the Ukrainian citizenship. Since then, Saakashvili has been staying in several European countries.
On September 10, Saakashvili was also put on the ‘Peacekeeper’ website’s database in the "Purgatory" section for illegally crossing Ukraine’s state border and attacking border guards.
The ‘Peacekeeper’ website, a project of Ukrainian MP and Adviser to Ukrainian Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko, was set up in the spring of 2014 for identifying self-defense militias of Donbass and individuals aiding them. The database includes information on people who could allegedly commit crimes against Ukraine’s national security.
The database has personal data on journalists, who work for RT, TASS, the BBC, Reuters, France Press, CNN, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, AP, newspapers and other mass media outlets. The list provides full information on their residence, phone numbers and e-mail addresses. The portal accused the journalists of complicity to terrorist organizations.
The project was closed after a criminal case was launched in early 2016 against the website’s staff members at the request of Ukrainian and foreign journalists, and by the demand of an EU official. Shortly after, the website resumed operation despite numerous objections.