Protesters in Ukraine call for president’s impeachment

FILE - In this file photo dated Tuesday Feb. 19, 2019, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko shows the newly signed Constitutional amendment to joining the EU and NATO in Ukrainian parliament in Kiev, Ukraine. President Petro Poroshenko said he would instruct his government to formulate a new draft law on punishing officials for corruption and that it would be submitted to parliament as an urgent priority. (Mikhail Palinchak, Presidential Press Service Pool Photo via AP, File)

KIEV, Ukraine — Several hundred people have marched across the Ukrainian capital calling for the impeachment of the country’s president.

President Petro Poroshenko, who is seeking re-election in a March 31 vote, has come under fire over a journalistic investigation that implicated one of his senior associates in the alleged embezzlement of military funds.

Poroshenko has denied involvement in the embezzlement and ordered prosecutors to investigate.

The publication dealt another blow to Poroshenko, whose popularity has sunk because of rampant official corruption and economic woes that followed Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea. The president is trailing popular comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy in polls.

Protesters carried banners Thursday that read, “There are many candidates but there is only one marauder,” mimicking Poroshenko’s campaign slogan, “There are many candidates but there is only one president.”

The Associated Press