The deputy head of the presidential administration, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, has initiated an office investigation after parts of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's speech at a joint briefing with European Council President Donald Tusk turned out to be excerpts from President Petro Poroshenko's speech at the congress of the European Solidarity party.
"We have preliminarily established that employees of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry who prepared statements for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's briefing continued to also work for Petro Poroshenko. The content and agenda of Volodymyr Zelenskyy's negotiations with EU and NATO leaders were formed separately by employees of the Ukrainian presidential administration. Therefore, representatives of the previous authorities had no influence on the issues raised by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with European partners and friends of Ukraine," the statement reads.
The presidential administration promised "tough managerial, disciplinary and personnel consequences".
"We view it as an act of sabotage by certain employees of the Foreign Ministry and a deliberate act of provocation by Petro Poroshenko's team," it said.
Earlier, the former president's press secretary, Svyatoslav Tseholko, said that Zelenskyy used a whole paragraph from Poroshenko's speech at the European Solidarity congress. He also suggested the new president should hire a speechwriter.
Once Zelenskyy was sworn in as president, all the news and speeches of President Petro Poroshenko were removed from the president's official website.