That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for April 17, 2019. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
Poroshenko Reinvented: Apologies, New Promises, And Slick Moves May Be 'Too Little, Too Late'
By Christopher Miller
KYIV -- There is one presidential candidate Ukrainians have become accustomed to watching sing and dance on stage.
It is not incumbent President Petro Poroshenko.
And yet there the 53-year-old was, gyrating and pumping his fist beside yellow-overall-clad rockers at a campaign rally at Kyiv's Olimpiyskiy Stadium on April 14.
Fighting for his political survival -- one week before the election.
Then, in another act his aides said was unscripted, Poroshenko led a gushing crowd of a few thousand people inside the 70,000-seat stadium for nearly an hour, rousing them with patriotic chants and posing for selfies with supporters.
Hours earlier, at a press conference that was supposed to be a debate with comedian and presidential front-runner Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Poroshenko made his case for a second term and pleaded for another chance to deliver on promises that many Ukrainians say have been unfulfilled during a presidency that has seen his popularity plummet.
Zelenskiy refused to attend Poroshenko's debate, demanding the two go head-to-head at the stadium on April 19 instead.
Standing beside an empty lectern bearing his opponent's name, the incumbent president -- who campaigned in the first round on a platform that hailed such achievements as steering Ukraine on a westward path, securing an independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and halting Russian aggression that has cleaved large swathes of his country's territory and caused the deaths of 13,000 people -- apologized for mistakes made during his five-year rule and promised to do better in a second term.
"Are there any mistakes? Let's talk about the mistakes," an uncharacteristically contrite Poroshenko said. "There are, and I admit them. But one who does nothing does not make a mistake."
After the devastating second-place finish in the first round of Ukraine's presidential election in which Zelenskiy won nearly twice as many votes as him (30.24 percent to 15.95 percent in the final tally), Poroshenko is attempting to reinvent himself and his campaign and thereby reach out to voters frustrated by the slow pace of change, runaway corruption, and the ongoing war in the country's east.
But he is also doing it in an unorthodox style more akin to his challenger.
Ukrainian Presidential Front-Runner Zelenskiy Hires Washington Lobbying Firm To 'Elevate Profile'
By Christopher Miller
KYIV – Ukrainian comedian and presidential front-runner Volodymyr Zelenskiy has hired a Washington lobbying firm to burnish his international image and set up meetings between members of his camp and officials in the U.S. capital.
Zelenskiy and his Servant of the People party, which shares the same name as his hit TV sitcom in which he stars as a teacher who accidentally becomes president after a video of him ranting against corruption goes viral, has hired Signal Group Consulting for $60,000, John Procter, who handles media relations at Signal Group, confirmed to RFE/RL in an April 14 e-mail.
A Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filing made public on April 17 said Signal Group was hired on behalf of the candidate by Marcus Cohen “to elevate the profile of Volodymyr Zelenskiy – Servant of the People.”
According to Procter, the firm began short-term work for Zelenskiy last week that includes facilitating meetings for the candidate’s team members with officials on Capitol Hill and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, members of the news media, and the think tank and policy community.
The hire shows the importance to Zelenskiy of Western support, a campaign official who requested anonymity to speak about the issue with media told RFE/RL.
Zelenskiy has no immediate plans to visit Washington, that campaign official said. But he met President Emmanuel Macron in Paris last week, hours before a separate meeting between the French leader and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The talks at Elysee Palace included prospects for the settlement of the five-year war against Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
France and Germany are involved in so-called “Normandy format” talks with Ukraine and Russia to try to end the conflict. But Zelenskiy has said in recent days that he would like to bring Washington and London into the negotiations.
According to sources in the Zelenskiy camp and an e-mail obtained by RFE/RL, Signal Group was arranging meetings for Zelenskiy’s campaign chief of staff and Servant of the People party leader Ivan Bakanov, as well as senior economic adviser Oleh Dubyna.
Dubnya, a former chairman of the board of Ukraine's national oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy, as well as energy minister and vice prime minister in Viktor Yushchenko's government, has not previously been named publicly as a member of Zelenskiy’s team.
Dubyna also served as an adviser to President Leonid Kuchma in 2002-03. In 2007, Dubyna was appointed the head of Naftogaz by then-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who allegedly forced him to sign a controversial gas contract with Russia in 2009 under threat of being fired. He resigned his office in 2010 after the presidential election.
Zelenskiy faces the incumbent Poroshenko in an April 21 runoff vote. Polls show him way out in front of Poroshenko, whose popularity has plummeted over the course of a five-year presidency in which he has set Ukraine on a Westward course but failed to tackle entrenched corruption.
Presidential debate appears on for April 19:
By RFE/RL
Preparations continue for the scheduled debate between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his challenger, the comic actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Zelenskiy and Poroshenko are now due to face off in a question-and-answer format at Kyiv's Olimpiyskiy Stadium on April 19, just two days before the runoff vote on April 21.
Opinion polls show Zelenskiy with a comfortable lead over Poroshenko, whom many Ukrainians blame for the slow pace of reform and failure to tackle corruption during his five-year term.
Zelenskiy, who stars on a TV comedy series about a teacher who becomes president after denouncing corruption, won nearly twice as many votes as Poroshenko in the first round, on March 31.
The two candidates had agreed to a debate, but not on details, such as when.
Poroshenko showed up at Olimpiyskiy Stadium on April 14, insisting the debate would take place then.
Zelenskiy did not appear, and Poroshenko ended up holding a rally there with supporters.
Now, both camps say the two candidates will meet at the 70,000-seat stadium on April 19, according to a report by the AFP news agency.
The Zelenskiy team is promoting the event on social media, encouraging the public to be "witness to an event that will go down in the history of Ukraine," according to AFP.
The two men took drug tests earlier this month at Zelenskiy's insistence in a campaign that has been marked by theatrics on both sides.
Poroshenko's campaign team said on April 17 that supporters will be bussed in for free for the event, according to Interfax.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said a crowd of "up to 60,000" was expected to attend the debate, adding he would be discussing security matters with representatives of both candidates.
His comments on April 17 come after Ukrainian authorities announced they had captured a Russian military intelligence hit squad responsible for the attempted murder of a Ukrainian military spy ahead of the presidential runoff.
The issue of how to deal with Russia, which annexed Crimea in 2014 and backs separatists in eastern Ukraine, is prominent ahead of the vote, with Poroshenko casting himself as the commander in chief Ukraine needs to defend the country. (w/AFP, Reuters, Interfax, and TASS)
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (click to enlarge):
