Petro Poroshenko was not released from Ukraine, canceled his business trip

The First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada explained the cancellation of the business trip of the ex-President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and the fact that he was not allowed to go abroad by receiving a letter marked “for official use” (DSP). The Ukrainian Service of Radio Liberty writes about it.

The content of the letter of the deputy head of the Council, Aleksandr Kornienko, did not disclose. According to him, Poroshenko indicated his participation in a non-parliamentary event – the party forum of the International Democratic Union – and about other possible high-level meetings as the main reason for his foreign assignment. “According to our internal principles, participation in party events is allowed, but when we received a letter bearing the stamp of the SPD, which I cannot comment on, we were forced to cancel the business trip,” Kornienko said on the air of the telethon.

Earlier on Friday, Poroshenko said that in the morning he was not released outside Ukraine for a business trip from December 1 to 8, although there was an order from the head of the Council. According to Poroshenko, he has scheduled meetings with representatives of the US Congress and the Polish Sejm in the coming days.

Radio Liberty contacted the Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, for a comment through his press service, but they said that they “can’t provide a comment on Poroshenko’s canceled business trip yet”, adding that Stefanchuk himself is currently on a business trip.

• This is not the first time that the Ukrainian border service has denied the ex-president entry. In May 2022, he was able to leave Ukraine only at the third request and only after he published an open letter to President Volodymyr Zelensky. A number of criminal cases have been instituted against Poroshenko in Ukraine, in particular, he is accused of treason and financing terrorism during coal deliveries in 2014-2015 from the Donbass regions not controlled by Kyiv.