Masked Protestors Burn Portraits of Yermak and Zelensky During Rally in Kiev

Ukraine’s Channel 5 said other protestors condemned the move, describing perpetrators as provocators and saying that their actions were not a part of the peaceful protest

MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/. A group of unidentified individuals wearing balaclava masks burned portraits of Vladimir Zelensky and his chief of staff Andrey Yermak during a rally in Kiev against the controversial law de-facto ending independence of the country’s anti-corruption agencies.

Ukraine’s Channel 5 said other protestors condemned the move, describing perpetrators as provocators and saying that their actions were not a part of the peaceful protest.

Rallies against the Vladimir Zelensky law effectively abolishing the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) are under way in 12 Ukrainian cities. The protests are being held in Chernigov, Kiev, Vinnitsa, Dnepr, Zhitomir, Lvov, Nikolayev, Poltava, Rovno, Ternopol, Kharkov and Khmelnitsky.

Zelensky has long been trying to take NABU and SAPO under control but they had previously managed to stay independent. On June 23, NABU brought corruption charges against Alexey Chernyshov, who at the time served as Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and minister of national unity. Chernyshov is seen as a very influential member of Zelensky’s inner circle, a fact that only escalated tensions. Opposition lawmakers point out that anti-corruption agencies were pushing to bring changes against other close Zelensky allies. On July 21, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) carried out 70 searches of NABU employees, and also raided SAPO. Late on Tuesday, about 2,000 Kiev residents took to the streets to protest and demand, among other things, the resignation of Andrey Yermak, head of Zelensky’s office. Rallies were also held in Dnepr, Lvov, Odessa, Poltava, Rovno and Ternopol. However, Zelensky still signed the controversial law, which took effect on July 23. The move sparked protests across Ukraine. In Kiev, over 9,000 people took to the streets to rally against the law.

On Thursday, Zelensky submitted to the legislature a bill on the so-called strengthening of the powers of the anti-corruption agencies. The bill would require, among other things, that officers of the Security Service of Ukraine subject the staff of the two bodies, along with employees of the State Bureau of Investigation, the Economic Security Bureau and the police who have access to state secrets, to lie detector tests.