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are accusing him of “profiting from blood” after an investigation revealed that the son of the president’s close business partner has been selling arms to separatist rebels in the breakaway eastern region of Donbas, it was a revealed in a report broadcast on Ukrainian TV on February 25.
Award-winning investigative reporter Denys Bihus aired the results of an investigation on Ukrainian television citing documents and private messages from an anonymous leaker that described a fraud by a group allegedly including Ihor Hladkovskiy (aka Gladkovsky) , the 22-year-old son of Oleh Hladkovskiy , who is formerly worked closely with Poroshenko and has been the First Deputy Secretary of National Security and Defence Council (NSCD).
Hladkovskiy senior immediately resigned his post on February 27 as the scandal swept the country that could spell the end to Poroshenko’s re-election hopes. Despite the ties between the men, Poroshenko himself has not been personally implicated in the schemes to sell weapons that are widely seen as Kremlin-proxies and who are fighting the Ukrainian army. More than 10,000 Ukrainian service men have been killed in the four-year long undeclared proxy war against Russia.
“Just wonder if this will be a terminal blow for Poroshenko’s campaign. [Rivals Yulia Tymoshenko] and Zelenskiy will milk this one to the full,” Tim Ash, Senior Sovereign Strategist at BlueBay Asset Management said in an emailed note. “And assume given the focus of [oligarch Ihor] Kolomoisky’s media channels they will look to reveal lots more kompromat. All sides have a lot to lose in this campaign, I guess it is going to be an ugly and dirty campaign. The gloves just came off.
With the presidential election only a month away Poroshenko’s main rivals leapt on the case to lambaste the president.
With a record 44 candidate registered for the poll, the race is seen as a three-way affair between the incumbent president, ex-MP Yulia Tymoshenko and comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Tymoshenko accusing Poroshenko and his inner circle of "state treason" and called for his immediate impeachment. Zelenskiy said the president and his friends were "profiting on blood."
"This is state treason deliberately committed by a citizen of Ukraine to the detriment of Ukraine's sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability, defence capabilities and state and economic security," Tymoshenko said on February 25. "In essence, this is supporting the enemy in destroying the Ukrainian army. This supports the occupier-state in conquering our country. This is absolutely a case for prosecution."
Ihor Hladkovskiy was a direct participant in "schemes in the millions" that stole money from Ukraine’s defence industry complex and illegally profited from the war, according to the Nashi Hroshi investigation broadcasted on February 25.
Among the most outrageous alleged schemes is organising contraband imports of Russian parts for Ukrainian military hardware, and then selling them at highly inflated prices to the armed forces.
The program demonstrated leaked text messages in, which Russian suppliers
15 UKRAINE Country Report March 2019 www.intellinews.com