“Poroshenko says that he planned to meet with the leader of the European People’s Party”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
“Once again, as the leader of European Solidarity, on the instructions of the head of the presidential security service, I was not allowed abroad, where I planned to meet with the leader of the European People’s Party,” Poroshenko said on January 16.
“Indeed, People’s Deputy Petro Poroshenko had a business trip signed by me to the meeting of the Political Assembly of the European People’s Party, which took place on January 13-14 in the city of Brussels. Taking into account the logistics, in his application, the People’s Deputy requested that he be seconded from January 11 (date of departure) to January 15 (date of return). “Probably, the People’s Deputy made a decision on his own not to go, as evidenced by his actual presence in the Parliament’s meeting hall during the days for which the business trip was planned,” Stefanchuk answered.
Currently, Poroshenko has not publicly commented on this explanation of the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada.
Earlier, there were incidents when Petro Poroshenko claimed that he was not allowed abroad for official meetings. In particular, on December 1, 2023, he “was not released (outside Ukraine – ed.), although there was an order of the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, which clearly stated that the international business trip was from December 1 to 8.”
Subsequently, the first deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, a representative of the “Servant of the People” party, Oleksandr Kornienko, said that the foreign trip of the people’s deputy, the fifth president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, was canceled after receiving a letter marked “For official use”, the content of which he cannot disclose.
In March 2024, Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, had his trip to the Munich Security Conference canceled on the last day. He told about this on the air “Svoboda.Live” (a project of Radio Svoboda).
At that time, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that he does not see any oppression of the opposition in the country. He voiced such a position in response to the question of a Radio Liberty correspondent about the discriminatory practice of restrictions on travel abroad for people’s deputies from the opposition.