“Today, I signed the relevant documents to take another step to protect and cleanse our state from those on the side of the aggressor,” Zelenskiy said during his evening video address.
Zelenskiy would not list the names, but said they had dual Russian citizenship.
According to Ukrainian state media, the list includes several leading politicians from the office of Viktor Yanukovych, who served as the pro-Russian President of Ukraine from 2010 until he was removed from office in 2014.
The list included Dmytro Tabachnyk, former minister of education and science, Andriy Klyuyev, former deputy prime minister and head of Yanukovych’s administration and Vitaliy Zakharchenko, former interior minister, the news agency reported RBC-Ukraine.
Ukraine has stripped a number of people of their Ukrainian citizenship and sanctioned hundreds of Russian and Belarusian individuals and firms since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February last year.
(Reporting by Nick Starkov, David Ljunggren and Lidia Kelly; Writing by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Sandra Maler)
By Nick Starkov
