Kyiv's policies create "hardships" on pensioners in separatist-held areas:
By RFE/RL
Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Ukrainian pension policies impose "hardships" on pensioners with limited mobility who live in areas controlled by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Pensioners with limited mobility due to illness, disability, or advancing age who live in these areas face "overwhelming difficulty accessing their pensions or do not get them at all," the New York-based human rights watchdog said in a statement on January 24.
More than 450,000 of the 1.2 million pensioners living there do not receive their pensions, according to Ukraine's ombudswoman.
Since November 2014, Kyiv has required people living in the separatist-held areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions to register as displaced persons and to cross the contact line to government-controlled areas to receive their pensions.
"These policies are discriminatory, violate property rights, and simply cut off those who are physically unable to cross the line of contact from their pensions altogether," said Yulia Gorbunova, senior Europe and Central Asia researcher at HRW.
The group urged Ukrainian lawmakers to approve a pending draft law that would delink pension eligibility from displaced person status and make it easier to pay pension arrears to those who have been denied pension payments or have been unable to access them.
But HRW said the bill would not address other difficulties that pensioners unable to travel face in accessing their pensions.
As an example, the watchdog cited the rule according to which pensioners from separatist-controlled areas have to appear in person every three months for an identity verification procedure at the only state bank where pensions are paid. Unlike people living elsewhere in Ukraine, they may not appoint an authorized representative to collect their pensions.
To address that, the government should introduce a remote identity verification procedure and access to online notary services, according to HRW.
"Older people in areas not controlled by the government who have limited mobility should be treated the same as other Ukrainian citizens," Gorbunova said. "It is heartbreaking to imagine that some of them live in acute poverty but are not getting the pensions to which they are legally entitled."
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Poroshenko arrives for questioning in treason probe:
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
KYIV -- Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has arrived at the State Bureau of Investigation (DBR) for questioning as a witness in one of the inquiries launched into activities he may have played a role in during his presidency.
Poroshenko said before entering the DBR building on January 24 that the questioning was linked to an inquiry into alleged high treason during the outlining of the Minsk peace agreements in 2015, which are related to the situation in Ukraine's east, where Russia-backed separatists have controlled some areas since April 2014.
Poroshenko, who is currently a deputy in parliament, was questioned as a witness several times last year in cases looking into several other investigations launched after he failed to win a second term as president in an election in April 2019.
The DBR said on January 20 that it was looking into 13 possible cases where Poroshenko or his associates were implicated.
A billionaire confectioner, Poroshenko and his party ran on a pro-European, anti-Russian ticket in July's parliamentary elections, winning 25 seats.
Ukraine's envoy to Romania voices "regret" over "incorrect" Zelenskiy translation:
By RFE/RL
Ukraine's ambassador to Romania has expressed "regret" over what he called the "incorrect translation" of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's Day of Unity address that has upset Bucharest.
In his video address on January 22, Zelenskiy recalled the short-lived 1919 agreement known as the Unification Act, which was meant to establish a unified Ukrainian state at the end of World War I.
The English translation quoted Zelenskiy as saying that the northern part of a region of the former Austro-Hungarian empire was "occupied" by Romania.
Zelenskiy's use of the word "occupied" prompted the Romanian Foreign Ministry to summon Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksandr Bankov. Bucharest says that the unification of the territory with Romania under the name of Bucovina was internationally recognized in 1919 by the Treaty of Saint-Germain between the Allied powers and Austria.
The northern part of the historical Principality of Moldova was annexed by the Hapsburg empire in 1775, becoming known as Bukowina. The territory became part of Romania at the end of World War I, but its northern half was annexed by the Soviet Union following the 1939 treaty between Moscow and Nazi Germany known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
After the demise of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, the territory became part of Ukraine.
In a Facebook post on January 23, Bankov said Zelenskiy's address was incorrectly translated, and pointed to the corrected version of the translation, where the word "occupied" was replaced with the word "taken."
"I sincerely regret this unpleasant situation," Bankov said, adding that "in the end, this is the result of an incorrect translation and baseless interpretations."
"Affirmations such as 'Romania is being accused by Ukraine's president that it occupied northern Bucovina' or 'President V. Zelenskiy supports a Putin-style aggressive revisionism' are the result of absolutely wrong interpretations," Bankov said.