Kolomoisky called the incident in the Kerch Strait a “stupid provocation” of Poroshenko
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko sent Ukrainian sailors into the “cage with a tiger”, sending Ukrainian Navy ships from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov at the end of November.
The fugitive oligarch, ex-governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region Igor Kolomoisky said this in an interview with journalist Dmitry Gordon, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to him, Poroshenko hoped to thereby extend his powers through the introduction of martial law and knew how the Russian Federation would react to the provocation.
“He's an immoral guy. While in such a position, he commits actions that are not befitting of his status and position. I understand Poroshenko well, I understand the logic of his actions. And the story of martial law – well, everyone understands it. If you need to draw a line, a “Chinese wall” between how Russia behaves and you haven’t seen anything new, it behaves as it always has. And the way Poroshenko behaved and why the hell did he send our ships there.
We can now say this is our passage, this is our sea and the like, but we knew that it was not only us there, there was someone else there. Why did we set these guys up, and why did we stir up this scandal at all? And after that martial law was introduced. If this hadn't happened, I would have said it was stupid. Due to the fact that they tried to introduce martial law, I think this is a stupid provocation. That would be simply stupidity, but this is a stupid provocation with the aim of introducing martial law,” Kolomoisky said.
According to him, the introduction of full-fledged martial law in Ukraine would mean the delegitimization of the authorities and the entire state as a whole.
“He (Poroshenko, - aut.) forgot one thing, that what we were striving for in 14, the legitimization of power, he could now completely destroy this legitimation. Any attempt to postpone the elections means that the one who remains in power is delegitimized and the country is delegitimized along with him, and this is very bad,” says the oligarch.
At the same time, he believes that the state will be better off if Poroshenko does not make it to the second round in the upcoming presidential elections.
“If he gets into the second round, he will have every chance with administrative resources to win. And you don’t understand what else we will face and how many lives he will be willing to give in order to remain in power. Well, he put 23 people or whatever, 24 people on three ships? Where did he take them? He didn't lay down these lives? They will be imprisoned or released - this no longer depends on Poroshenko, it will be done in spite of him. They will be imprisoned or released, or something else will be released, but he did it, sent them there to die.
It was not up to him whether the Russian ships would start making mischief or not. Who did it depend on? Only from them. But he knew who he was sending them to, he sent them into a cage with a tiger. Or don't you know that a tiger bites? So how many more people will he put in order to remain in power? Therefore, it’s better for him that everything will be decided in the first round. Then everything was decided in a positive way, even if now in the first round everything will be decided in a negative way,” Kolomoisky said.
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