Joe.My.God. LGBT News
The BBC reports:
The UK has accused President Putin of plotting to install a pro-Moscow figure to lead Ukraine’s government. The Foreign Office took the unusual step of naming former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev as a potential Kremlin candidate.
Russia has moved 100,000 troops near to its border with Ukraine but denies it is planning an invasion. UK ministers have warned that the Russian government will face serious consequences if there is an incursion.
In a statement, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: “The information being released today shines a light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin thinking.
ABC News reports:
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday rejected a British claim that Russia was seeking to replace Ukraine’s government with a pro-Moscow administration, and that former Ukrainian lawmaker Yevheniy Murayev was being considered as a potential candidate.
Britain’s Foreign Office on Saturday also named several other Ukrainian politicians it said had links with Russian intelligence services, along with Murayev who is the leader of a small party that has no seats in the parliament.
“The disinformation spread by the British Foreign Office is more evidence that it is the NATO countries, led by the Anglo-Saxons, who are escalating tensions around Ukraine,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on the Telegram messaging app Sunday.
Reuters reports:
Born in the eastern city of Kharkiv near the Russian border in 1976, Murayev is part of a group of politicians in opposition to the pro-Western leadership that took power after the 2014 Maidan street protests.
He began his political career in Kharkiv as an ally of the former President Viktor Yanukovich, who fled to Russia after the Maidan uprising.
In 2014-2019, Murayev was a lawmaker. He started in the Opposition Bloc faction, a party formed from fragments of the Moscow-backed Yanukovich’s Party of Regions. But in June 2016 he distanced himself from Opposition Bloc and founded his own party For Life, with a similar ideology.
Pro @Russian standpoint, lawyers background and some millions in cash – looks like a good candidate to lead anti @Ukraine policy line. Explainer: Who is Yevhen Murayev, named by UK as Kremlin’s Ukraine pick? | Reuters https://t.co/vCb0UTzxAb
— Petras Austrevicius (@petras_petras) January 23, 2022