Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, currently the leader of the European Solidarity party, said he believes President Volodymyr Zelensky's idea to extend the effect of the law on lustration to broader categories of public officials would eventually lead to vacating offices for the "fifth column."

"A fantastic initiative has been voiced today to lustrate all those who served in the executive or legislative branch from 2014 to 2019. Those who defended the state and built the state. Lustrate them in order to vacate the place for the fifth column. This list is very much reminiscent of another list - the list of those on whom the aggressor state has imposed sanctions, the people who defended Ukraine, who defended the Revolution of Dignity," the European Solidarity press service quoted Poroshenko as saying on Friday.

The so-called new lustration idea might indicate the intention to punish those who defended Ukraine from Russian invasion and provided it with a European incentive, he said.

"Mustafa Jemilev [the leader of the Crimean Tatar people and a member of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction at the Verkhovna Rada] and Refat Chubarov [the head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People and a member of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction at the Verkhovna Rada], Yuriy Shukhevych [a Verkhovna Rada deputy of the Radical Party faction], Dmytro Yarosh [an unaffiliated parliamentarian], volunteer Tetiana Rychkova [a Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction member], the incumbent ministers Stepan Poltorak [defense minister] and Pavlo Klimkin [foreign minister], dozens of other representatives of the new modern Ukrainian politics who have proven their professionalism and love for Ukraine by real deeds - all of them can be lustrated in line with the declared criteria," Poroshenko said.

"This initiative has been inspired by anti-Ukrainian forces and is proof of an undisguised pro-Russian revanche, as some want to replace patriotic politicians with puppets obeying orders from the Kremlin," he said.