The government has not been able to explain to the public on what grounds it introduced sanctions against Petro Poroshenko for a year, the fifth President stated during a break in the panel of judges’ meeting of the Cassation Chamber of the Supreme Court. As is known, today the court continues the consideration of Petro Poroshenko’s lawsuit against President Zelenskyy regarding the cancellation of the illegal Decree on sanctions.
“The stage of providing, analyzing, and evaluating evidence has been completed. Today, we have come to amazing conclusions. For a year, an illegal, unconstitutional, extrajudicial decree has existed, restricting my rights as a citizen, as a member of parliament, my rights as the leader of the opposition – and in a year the government has not managed to provide a single piece of evidence. The only thing they tried to prove was that the president does not need evidence,” Poroshenko said.
“The second position: back in November, we submitted a fateful decision of the European Court of Human Rights, which is mandatory for the government, for the Supreme Court, for the parliament, and for the president. He cannot ignore this decision. On January 16, 2026, the decision entered into legal force and is mandatory for execution. What is this decision about? Throughout the year, the president’s representatives emphasized that the president’s decree is allegedly not subject to control. It has a discretionary character, meaning he does whatever he wants. The ECHR stated that judicial control is mandatory for all member states of the Council of Europe. No document is protected from judicial control, and the court is obligated to exercise it. The second position is that these decisions cannot have, as they say, a discretionary character, that is, be introduced without any reasons,” emphasizes the fifth President.
“They are obliged to explain what Poroshenko is guilty of. Answering the question of why the sanctions were introduced, we did not find the answers to this question,” Petro Poroshenko stated.
“The third position is falsification. We have been talking about this all year. The Cabinet of Ministers’ decree differs from the decree that entered the NSDC. It already differs from the decree that was submitted for voting. It differs from the decree that was submitted for the president’s signature. It differs even after publication, because my tax number is not there. And then, after publication, they falsified it again, without a new NSDC meeting. This is not a mistake. This is a crime,” Poroshenko believes.
He also noted that against the backdrop of numerous corruption scandals of recent months, the introduction of illegal sanctions, including by the figures of these scandals, looks even more cynical: “Imagine, in February, in the morning, they held a meeting with Mindich regarding the divvying up of ‘two million’ to Moscow, with suitcases that are very difficult for them to carry because there are 2 million dollars there. And 3 hours later, in the evening, they went to a meeting at the Ministry of Economy and introduced sanctions against Poroshenko.”
According to the fifth President, instead of the problems of war and the catastrophe with critical infrastructure, the government is concerned with elections: “The main goal of the sanctions is to keep opponents out of the elections. I want to emphasize that elections during martial law are illegal because they create conditions for government manipulation. Elections without opposition leaders are illegal because they do not ensure the free expression of the citizens’ will. And this definitely does not coincide with our movement towards the European Union.”
“The first cluster of the negotiation process about our membership writes about the rule of law, writes about freedom, including the freedom of expression of citizens’ will, and writes about democracy. In general, this is called the Copenhagen criteria. And we should not be aggressive or demand acceptance. We need to work to make Ukraine European, even during the war. Because only the Armed Forces of Ukraine have passed the test of Europeanness. I very much hope that today the Supreme Court of Ukraine will pass this test,” Poroshenko said.