Former Minister of Justice Olena Lukash is suspected of embezzling 2.5 million hryvnas (almost $110,000 according to today’s exchange rate), said prosecutor Vladyslav Kutsenko of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Office.
“During summer-fall 2013, Lukash, abusing her office and by prior agreement held artificial tendering procedures to implement the program of adapting Ukrainian legislation to EU legislation, and in course of the implementation of this program took possession of more than 2.5 million hryvnas”, stated Kutsenko.
Ukrainian security Service spokeswoman Olena Hitlyanska said that Lukash has been taken to Prosecutor General's office for questioning.
Earlier this year SBU put Lukash on their wanted list. In the summer of 2015, the Kyiv district court seized three apartments she owned.
Lukash was appointed minister of justice in 2013 under former president Viktor Yanukovych.
NATO chief says alliance must counter Russia military build-up
Lisbon, Nov 5, 2015 (AFP) -- NATO head Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday the alliance must counter a Russian military build-up in the Baltic, the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean which could give Moscow control of key areas in a crisis.
He said the 28-nation, US-led alliance must also consider doing more to reassure eastern member states once ruled from Moscow who have been badly unnerved by Russia's intervention in Ukraine.
As ties with the west have deteriorated, Russia has boosted its military presence in its Kaliningrad enclave, which sits west of and on the blind-side of the Baltic states.
Moscow has meanwhile deployed troops, aircraft and navy ships to Syria to bolster long-time ally President Bashar al-Assad.
Stoltenberg warned that Russia is acquiring the ability and presence to exercise control over strategic points and NATO must ensure it can carry out its own missions in such a changed environment.
"This is a military build-up which provides the Russians with what many experts call Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) capabilities," he told reporters at the Portuguese naval base of Troia south of Lisbon.
"We have to be sure we are able to overcome these capabilities so we can reinforce and deploy forces if needed," he said, after watching troops take part in the Trident Juncture exercise, NATO's biggest in more than a decade.
"The question on our agenda now is how to overcome, how to deal with the increased A2/AD capabilities of Russia in the Baltic, the Black Sea and now in the Mediterranean."
- Stepped-up presence -
Stoltenberg made his remarks when he was asked about what more NATO should do to reassure eastern member states who fear for their future in the face of a more assertive Russia.
They want NATO to do more and have suggested the alliance could even set up permanent bases on their soil.
NATO has previously ruled out that possibility for fear of breaching treaties agreed with Russia banning such a presence.
But Stoltenberg said Thursday there was no real distinction to be made between permanent and the sort of temporary, rotating NATO deployments of troops, ships and planes which have all been stepped up since the Ukraine crisis broke.
NATO has also set up forward command units in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, and pre-positioned equipment so that its new high speed rapid reaction force can hit the ground running in any crisis.
"We have already increased our presence and we are looking into the question of whether we should increase it even more," Stoltenberg said, adding that the issue would be on the agenda for the next NATO leaders summit in Warsaw in July 2016.
Stung by Russia's intervention in Ukraine, NATO leaders agreed last year to reverse years of defence spending cuts and to upgrade its rapid response force, more than doubling its size to around 40,000 troops.
They also approved what is known as the Very High-Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), a smaller "spearhead" unit which can put boots on the ground within 48 hours.
The Trident Juncture exercise is NATO's biggest since 2002, putting some 36,000 troops through their paces over five weeks in Italy, Spain and Portugal.
President Petro Poroshenko said that Darth Vader would become Ukraine’s prime minister only after the coalition submits a corresponding proposal to the Verkhovna Rada.
Poroshenko published the statement in reply to a petition on “appointing dark lord Darth Vader the prime minister of Ukraine,” which collected 25,396 signatures online.
“I draw your attention to the fact that the issue of appointing prime minister of Ukraine is regulated by the Constitution of Ukraine and the law On the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. According to the constitution, the Ukrainian prime-minister is appointed by the Verkhovna Rada on the proposal of the president of Ukraine,” reads the statement. Poroshenko adds that presidential proposal would have to follow the coalition’s proposal.
The Last Holdouts In A Ukrainian Ghost Town
The village of Pisky is one of the casualties of war in Ukraine's Donetsk region. Just a handful of residents still live in the ruined houses and apartment blocks, surviving on sparse food donations from volunteers. In spite of a cease-fire between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists, locals often hear gunfire and shelling in the distance. (RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service)
Ukraine’s Ex-Justice Minister Detained In Probe Of Maidan Killings
By RFE/RL
Ukraine's Security Service says former Justice Minister Olena Lukash has been detained in connection with an investigation into deadly shootings during opposition protests in 2014 that brought down the pro-Russian government of then-President Viktor Yanukovych.
Lukash was detained in Kyiv upon returning from Russia.
More than a hundred people were killed on and around Kyiv’s central Independence Square -- known as the Maidan -- by sniper fire from February 18-20, 2014.
An ongoing Ukrainian investigation has not yet identified who was behind the attacks.
The Ukrainian Security Service said on November 5 that Lukash, the country's justice minister at the time, has been taken into custody and that a court will soon determine whether charges will be filed against her.
Prosecutor Vladislav Kutsenko told reporters in Kyiv on November 5 that procedures to officially charge Lukash are under way.
Lukash said in a video that was shown at a news briefing by Ukraine’s Security Service that she was going to the Prosecutor-General’s Office “together with counterintelligence officers to provide testimony.”
She said she was not under pressure and that her visit to the prosecutor’s office was “a routine conversation with counterintelligence officers” to “provide testimony voluntarily.”
On February 28, Ukraine's prosecutor-general requested that the Interior Ministry and Ukrainian Security Services arrest Lukash on suspicion of involvement in masterminding the shooting of antigovernment protesters.
The EU and Canada included Lukash in March last year on a list of Ukrainian and Russian officials subjected to financial sanctions.
In May, the Prosecutor-General's Office charged Lukash in absentia with public funds mismanagement, forgery, and abuse of office.
The deaths in and around the Maidan came at the end of monthslong opposition protests that prompted Yanukovych to flee Ukraine in late February.
Lukash served as Ukraine's justice minister in 2013 and early 2014.
She was dismissed on February 27, 2014, days after Yanukovych was toppled from power and fled to Russia.