Russia rejects British claim of trying to replace Ukraine leader

MOSCOW — Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday rejected a British claim the Kremlin is seeking to replace Ukraine’s government with a pro-Moscow administration, and former Ukrainian lawmaker Yevheniy Murayev is 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 parliament.

Those politicians include Mykola Azarov, a former prime minister under Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president ousted in a 2014 uprising, and Yanukovych’s former chief of staff, Andriy Kluyev.

“Some of these have contact with Russian intelligence officers currently involved in the planning for an attack on Ukraine,” the Foreign Office said.

Murayev told The Associated Press via Skype the British claim “looks ridiculous and funny” and he has been denied entry to Russia since 2018 on the grounds of being a threat to Russian security. He said that sanction was imposed in the wake of a conflict with Viktor Medvedchuk, Ukraine’s most prominent pro-Russia politician and a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Murayev’s Nashi party — whose name echoes the former Russian youth movement that supported Putin — is regarded as sympathetic to Russia, but Murayev on Sunday pushed back on characterizing it as pro-Russia.

“The time of pro-Western

and pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine is gone forever,” he said in a Facebook post.

“Everything that does not support the pro-Western path of development of Ukraine is automatically pro-Russian,” Murayev told The AP.

He also said he supports Ukraine having neutral status and believes “striving for NATO is tantamount to continuing the war.” Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists have been fighting in the country’s east since 2014, a conflict that has killed more than 14,000.

Ukrainian political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko described Murayev as a significant figure in Ukraine’s pro-Russia camp, but added: “Murayev is a second-place player.

I don’t think Murayev has direct connections in the Kremlin.”

The U.K. government made the claim based on an intelligence assessment, without providing evidence to back it up. It comes amid high tensions between Moscow and the West over Russia’s designs on Ukraine and each side’s increasing accusations that the other is planning provocations.

“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. “We call on the British Foreign Office

to stop provocative activities, stop spreading nonsense.”

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the information “shines a light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin thinking.”

Truss urged Russia to “deescalate, end its campaigns of aggression and disinformation, and pursue a path of diplomacy,” and reiterated Britain’s view that “any Russian military incursion into Ukraine would be a massive strategic mistake with severe costs.”

Britain has sent antitank weapons to Ukraine as part of efforts to bolster the country’s defenses against a potential Russian attack.