Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said on Saturday that former President Petro Poroshenko, a rival of current leader Volodymyr Zelensky, was not allowed to travel abroad because he wanted to meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and was at risk of “being attacked by the… “Russians are being exploited.” “.
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Petro Poroshenko, who led Ukraine from 2014 to 2019 and is now an opposition lawmaker, claimed on Friday he was blocked at the border as he was supposed to travel abroad for “dozens of meetings in Poland and the United States.”
However, he assured that he had received permission to leave Ukraine, with foreign trips by Ukrainian officials having to be confirmed by authorities under martial law in force since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022.
On Saturday, the security services said they had received “information about the preparation of provocations” by the Russians with the aim of “reducing support from foreign partners” and “dividing Ukrainian society.”
According to them, Moscow intended to take advantage of a meeting between Petro Poroshenko and Viktor Orban, who was accused of “anti-Ukrainian sentiment.”
AFP
The former head of state and head of the European Solidarity Party therefore had no right to leave Ukraine because he could have been “instrumentalized by the Russian secret services”.
Petro Poroshenko, who maintained terrible relations with Russia during his presidency, made no mention of a planned meeting with the Hungarian prime minister.
The ex-president claimed that he needed to talk about American military aid and the blockade of the border by Polish truck drivers.
Petro Poroshenko believed that the ban on leaving the territory constituted “anti-Ukrainian sabotage.”
In Ukraine he has been accused of treason and corruption, cases that his allies denounce as being political in nature.
Petro Poroshenko was slightly defeated by Volodymyr Zelensky in the 2019 presidential election.
AFP
He had already stated in May 2022 that he had been briefly detained at the border while attending the NATO parliamentary meeting in Lithuania before he was finally able to leave.