Vyshinsky Not Ruling Out Poroshenko May Be Locked In Kiev's Jail Upon Losing Election

Vyshinsky Not Ruling Out Poroshenko May Be Locked in Kiev's Jail Upon Losing Election

RIA Novosti Ukraine portal head Kirill Vyshinsky, who is currently in Kiev's Lukyanivska Prison on charges of treason and supporting the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics, is not ruling out that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko could be placed in the same prison after losing the Ukrainian presidential election

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th April, 2019) RIA Novosti Ukraine portal head Kirill Vyshinsky, who is currently in Kiev's Lukyanivska Prison on charges of treason and supporting the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics, is not ruling out that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko could be placed in the same prison after losing the Ukrainian presidential election.

The first round of the presidential election was held on March 31. Since no candidate has secured a majority, a runoff between Poroshenko and the leader of the first round, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will be held on Sunday.

"Many of my neighbors believe that Poroshenko will sooner or later find himself here, in Lukyanovka [Lukyanivska Prison], upon losing the election. Perhaps, this will happen before fall, so that he is able to vote in the elections to the [Ukrainian parliament, Verkhovna] Rada in October exactly from here," Vyshinsky said in his article for RIA Novosti.

Vyshinsky added that people staying in the Lukyanivska Prison were unlikely to support Poroshenko in the runoff.

"Lukyanovka will certainly not vote for Poroshenko. It does not have much trust in Zelenskiy either, since the shadow of Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi can be clearly seen behind his back, but it explicitly hates Poroshenko," Vyshinsky added.

He specified that the inmates, with their total number amounting to around 3,000, could vote for Zelenskiy in order to deprive Poroshenko of the opportunity to remain in power for another five years.

"I have not met Poroshenko's supporters among my inmates and neighbors from my section. They mostly voted for Zelenskiy and [Yulia] Tymoshenko [the head of the pro-European party Batkivshchyna]. Those who voted for Zelenskiy did it in order to damage the authorities. He symbolizes changes that the country is waiting for, [supporting him is] a kind of revenge to the current ... sticky-fingered elite," Vyshinsky said.

The head of the RIA Novosti Ukraine portal added that the residents of the prison were "laughing" at Poroshenko over his failure to fulfill his promises.

Ukrainian authorities arrested Vyshinsky last May. Russian consular officials have been denied access to the journalist, with the Ukrainian authorities referring to his Ukrainian citizenship.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Vyshinsky's arrest is politically motivated. The Russian Foreign Ministry has protested his detention, urging the Ukrainian authorities to stop the crackdown on media. Harlem Desir, the representative on freedom of the media at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, has called for the journalist's release.