Vyshinsky Says Declined Offer To Run In Ukraine's Snap Vote To Keep Working As Journalist

The head of RIA Novosti Ukraine, Kirill Vyshinsky, who has been in Ukrainian custody for over a year, said on Wednesday that various Ukrainian political parties had suggested he should run in the upcoming snap parliamentary elections, an offer he ultimately turned down since he was not ready to give up his journalistic work

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th June, 2019) The head of RIA Novosti Ukraine, Kirill Vyshinsky, who has been in Ukrainian custody for over a year, said on Wednesday that various Ukrainian political parties had suggested he should run in the upcoming snap parliamentary elections, an offer he ultimately turned down since he was not ready to give up his journalistic work.

"I want to thank all those who asked me to join the party lists and associations to participate in the early elections to the Verkhovna Rada [parliament]. Thank you very much for your trust, but at the moment I am not ready to leave the profession to which I have given more than 25 years [of my life] and engage in politics," Vyshinsky wrote in a letter posted by his lawyer on Facebook on Wednesday.

Vyshinsky also noted that he, above all else, was a journalist and expressed confidence that he would be able to prove that the charges against him were false.

"I am convinced that now, when there are fewer and fewer people from former [President Petro] Poroshenko's team, who were putting political pressure on the court, left in power every day, my innocence will become obvious to the Ukrainian justice," the letter said.

Vyshinsky was detained in Kiev in May 2018 on suspicion of supporting the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas and treason, and has been held in custody ever since. Along with repeatedly prolonging the journalist's arrest, the court has also refused to move him from a detention facility to house arrest.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Vyshinsky's arrest is politically motivated and demonstrates the former Ukrainian authorities' unacceptable policy of targeting journalists.

Representative on Freedom of the Media of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Harlem Desir has also expressed his concern over Ukraine's actions toward Vyshinsky and called for the journalist's release, stressing that all OSCE members had pledged to create the necessary conditions to allow journalists to work freely.