Ukrainian law enforcement officers are examining the authenticity of the recording of the alleged conversation between the ex-President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and the US presidential candidate, Democrat Joe Biden, said the head of the office of the country’s Attorney General Irina Venediktova.
Earlier, the non-factional deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Andriy Derkach, released three parts of the recordings of alleged telephone conversations between then-President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and former US Vice-President Joe Biden, which, according to him, testify to international corruption and treason of the former Ukrainian leader.
In an interview with the British newspaper The Telegraph, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that on the scandalous tapes of the conversation between Biden and Poroshenko, he was most interested not in “what”, but in “how”.
Earlier, a number of criminal cases were initiated in Ukraine related to Poroshenko, including under the articles of “treason” and “financing of terrorism”.
“The statements about these tapes came even before they were published. Now the investigation on the tapes of Derkach continues. Expert examinations that identify the voices on these tapes are also being carried out. We are studying those cases that concern us directly, and the investigation will put an end to this. We are waiting for the results. We will react only where it is provided by law… Ukraine does not interfere in the affairs of other states. We remain in the field of criminal justice”, – Venediktova said in an interview with journalist Savik Shuster, published on his YouTube channel.
One of the earlier published conversations concerned the dismissal of Viktor Shokin from the post of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, allegedly at the request of Biden. In exchange, he promised Poroshenko to allocate $1 billion to Ukraine. In addition, the recording discussed the alleged existence of a coalition in parliament, the resignation of the government of ex-prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and the approval of the government of ex-prime minister Volodymyr Groisman by the Rada. Poroshenko claimed that these records were fabricated.
On Thursday, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on a number of individuals due to the alleged “interference” in the American elections, in particular, the list of people suspected by the United States of involvement in cybercrimes includes Russians and Ukrainian citizen Derkach. Derkach himself called these sanctions revenge.