(Kyiv) The Ukrainian security services (SBU) said on Saturday that former President Petro Poroshenko, a rival of current head of state Volodymyr Zelensky, was not allowed to travel abroad because he was going to meet Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and risked being “exploited by the Russians”.
Petro Poroshenko, who led Ukraine from 2014 to 2019 and is now an opposition MP, claimed Friday to have been blocked at the border when he was supposed to go abroad for “dozens of meetings in Poland and the United States.
However, he assured that he had received authorization to leave Ukraine, with travel abroad by Ukrainian officials having to be validated by the authorities under martial law, in force since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022.
In a statement released on Saturday, the security services explained that they had received “information about the preparation of provocations” by the Russians, with the aim of “reducing support from foreign partners” and “dividing Ukrainian society”.
According to them, Moscow intended to use a meeting between Petro Poroshenko and Viktor Orban, accused of being “anti-Ukrainian”.
The former head of state, head of the European Solidarity party, was therefore not allowed to leave Ukraine because he could have been “exploited by the Russian intelligence services”.
In response to the SBU statement, Hungarian government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs wrote on X that Hungary did not want to “play any role in President Zelensky’s internal political struggles.”
“Reports like this and these political purges are a new indication that Ukraine is not yet ready to join the European Union,” he added.
“Anti-Ukrainian sabotage”
On Friday, Orban said the EU should offer a “strategic partnership agreement” to Ukraine instead of starting accession negotiations with the war-torn country.
Petro Poroshenko, who had maintained terrible relations with Russia during his presidency, did not mention a planned meeting with the Hungarian prime minister.
The ex-president affirmed that he had to discuss in particular American military aid and the blockade of the border by Polish truckers.
Petro Poroshenko believed that prohibiting him from leaving the territory represented “anti-Ukrainian sabotage”.
In Ukraine, he has been accused of high treason and corruption, cases his allies denounce as political in nature.
Petro Poroshenko was easily defeated by Volodymyr Zelensky in the 2019 presidential election.
In May 2022, he had already said he was briefly blocked at the border while he was supposed to take part in the NATO parliamentary assembly in Lithuania, before finally being able to leave.