On May 19, Ukrainian MP Andrii Derkach held a curious press conference, where he released what appeared to be the recordings of Petro Poroshenko's conversations with former Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State John Kerry.
The recordings were made during Mr. Poroshenko's presidency in 2015 and 2016. Among other issues, the sides, whose voices sounded like Poroshenko and Biden, discussed the dismissal of Prosecutor General Shokin.
"I especially asked him to resign... He promised me to give me his statement of resignation," Poroshenko allegedly informed Biden. He then proceeded to describe the Lutsenko candidacy, "One of the possible candidates was the leader of my faction Lutsenko, who is a public figure. If you think that a politically-motivated figure wouldn't be very good, I recall this proposal. Because nobody knows that I want to propose Lutsenko."
As Lutsenko was appointed, a person that sounded like Vice President Biden suggested that the U.S. was ready to proceed with a 1 billion dollars loan guarantee.
At an event at the Council on Foreign Relations, Mr. Biden boasted of how he handled the firing of Viktor Shokin. “If the prosecutor’s not fired, you’re not getting the money,” he said recalling the episode. “Well son of a bitch, he got fired.”
Nevertheless, when speaking to the Financial Times, the former US Treasury official said: “I know how the idea to have Shokin fired came up, and it wasn't Biden. His direct involvement came late in the game."
At the same time, an EU diplomat told the edition, “All of us were really pushing [former Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko that he needs to do something, because the prosecutor was not following any of the corruption issues. He was really bad news."