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Down With the Chocolate King: Activists Blockade Poroshenko's Candy Plants

© SputnikRoshen factory
Roshen factory - Sputnik International
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A group of activists calling themselves the 'Ruk Vyzvolennya' ('Movement for Liberation') blocked the entrances to President Petro Poroshenko's Roshen factories in the cities of Vinnitsa and Yahotyn on Saturday night, demanding that the leader make a choice: his duties as president or his business interests.

A small group of activists went to Vinnitsa, a city about 200 km southwest of Kiev, to demand an end to the "lawlessness, thievery and deception." A separate group of protesters, including local residents, gathered in the town of Yahotyn at a Roshen logistics center.

"The president must choose, either engage in the business of government, or his own business," a statement on the movement's Facebook group reads.

Post reads: "Activists from the Ruk Vyzvolennya and local residents block the road to the Roshen logistics center near the town of Yagotin, Kiev region."

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko addresses the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, October 11, 2017. - Sputnik International
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Protesters urged their countrymen to boycott all goods and services produced by Poroshenko's enterprises, including "all 104 companies declared in his tax declaration." Poroshenko, one of Ukraine's richest men, has donned the nickname 'Chocolate King' for his Roshen confectionary empire, but also has holdings in heavy manufacturing, the arms industry, agriculture, and banking. He also owns the Channel 5 TV network.

Ukrainian business newspaper Novoye Vremya recently rated Poroshenko as one of Ukraine's top five richest figures in 2017, with an estimated fortune of about $1 billion. Ahead of the 2014 presidential election, he promised to put his business dealings on hold, and to sell off Roshen. He later reneged on that promised. Novoye Vremya rankings in the last three years have shown him steadily climbing in the ranks, from 9th place in 2014 to 6th in 2015 to 5th in 2017.

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