• Yatsenyuk ally says he will resign from parliament amid corruption scandal
    http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/kyiv-post-plus/yatsenyuk-ally-says-he-will-resign-from-parliament-amid-corruption-scandal

    Mykola Martynenko, an ally of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, said on Nov. 30 that he had submitted his resignation as a member of the Verkhovna Rada.

    The decision comes amid a high-profile corruption scandal around Martynenko.

    Swiss and Czech prosecutors are investigating Martynenko on suspicion of accepting 30 million Swiss francs from Czech engineering firm Skoda for giving it a contract to supply equipment to state-owned nuclear power firm Energoatom.

    Last week Sergii Leshchenko, a lawmaker from President Petro Poroshenko’s bloc, published documents from Swiss prosecutors that detail the corruption accusations and ask for help from Ukrainian prosecutors, assistance that evidently was not forthcoming.

    Ukrainian authorities have shown no interest in investigating Martynenko, however.

    Given that attacks against me are also attacks against the Cabinet and the authorities in general, I submit my resignation as a lawmaker and voluntarily renounce my parliamentary immunity,” Martynenko, a member of Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front faction and head of the Verkhovna Rada’s fuel and energy committee, said on the Free Speech talk show on the ICTV television channel.

    He urged parliament to vote on the issue next week, possibly on Dec. 10.