Kyiv: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revoked the citizenship of several former influential politicians on Saturday in the latest of steps to “cleanse” the country from pro-Russian influences.
“Today, I signed the relevant documents to take another step to protect and cleanse our state from those on the side of the aggressor,” Zelenskyy said during his nightly video address.
Zelenskyy would not list the names, but said they had dual Russian citizenship. According to Ukrainian state media, the list includes several top politicians from the office of Viktor Yanukovych, who served as Ukraine’s pro-Russian president from 2010 until he was removed from office in 2014.
The list included Dmytro Tabachnyk, former minister of education and science, Andriy Klyuyev, former deputy prime minister and head of Yanukovych’s administration and Vitaliy Zakharchenko, former interior minister, RBC-Ukraine news agency reported.
Ukraine has stripped a number of people of their Ukrainian citizenship and has sanctioned hundreds of Russian and Belarusian individuals and firms since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February last year. Meanwhile, dozens of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war have returned home following a prisoner swap, officials on both sides said Saturday.
Top Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak said in a Telegram post that 116 Ukrainians were freed. He said the released POWs include troops who held out in Mariupol during Moscow’s monthslong siege that reduced the southern port city to ruins, as well as guerrilla fighters from the Kherson region and snipers captured during the ongoing fierce battles for the eastern city of Bakhmut. Russian defence officials, meanwhile, announced that 63 Russian troops had returned from Ukraine following the swap, including some “special category” prisoners whose release was secured following mediation by the United Arab Emirates. A statement issued Saturday by the Russian Defence Ministry did not provide details about these “special category” captives.
At least three civilians have been killed in Ukraine over the past 24 hours as Russian forces struck nine regions in the country’s south, north and east, according to reports on Ukrainian TV by regional governors on Saturday morning.
Two people were killed and 14 others wounded in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region by Russian shelling and missile strikes, local Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a Telegram update on Saturday morning.
The casualty toll included a man who was killed and seven others who were wounded Friday after Russian missiles slammed into Toretsk, a town in the Donetsk region.