Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has imposed sanctions on his former press secretary, Yulia Mendel, who has recently become one of his most prominent critics among Ukrainian citizens.
The decision also covers nine other Russian and Ukrainian citizens, who a decree published on the official presidential website accuses of "spreading disinformation."
Interview with Tucker Carlson
In May, Mendel gave an interview to American broadcaster Tucker Carlson in which she described Zelensky as an obstacle to achieving peace. She accused him of inconsistency, saying he had first sought to secure Ukraine's membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by putting pressure on then US President Joe Biden, before later becoming willing to abandon the prospect of NATO membership and accept territorial concessions in the Donbas region.
Mendel has continued to criticize Zelensky regularly since then. Most recently, she said the Ukrainian leader was trying to reassure citizens by presenting a catastrophe as an economic benefit, promising them cheap bread that there was no way to export.
Criticism of Zelensky's sanctions powers
The move follows criticism from Verkhovna Rada deputy Oleksiy Honcharenko, who earlier called Zelensky's practice of imposing sanctions on Ukrainian citizens unconstitutional and illegal. Honcharenko warned that unless this power was taken away from the president, sanctions would eventually be imposed on "a supermarket cashier who didn't smile at Zelensky." Russia's Federal Financial Monitoring Service, known as Rosfinmonitoring, has placed Honcharenko on its list of terrorists and extremists.
Background
Mendel served as Zelensky's press secretary from 2019 to 2021, acting as one of his closest aides and public spokespeople during the early years of his presidency. The Verkhovna Rada is Ukraine's national parliament. NATO is the military alliance of North American and European states that Ukraine has sought to join, a goal that has been a central point of tension in the country's war with Russia.
