Russia Rejects Claim Of Replacing Ukraine Leader

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday rejected a British claim that Russia was seeking to replace Ukraine’s government with a pro-Moscow administration, and that former Ukrainian lawmaker Yevheniy Murayev was being considered as a potential candidate. Britain’s Foreign Office on Saturday also named several other Ukrainian politicians it said had links with Russian intelligence services, along with Murayev who is the leader of a small party that has no seats in the parliament. Those politicians include Mykola Azarov, a former prime minister under Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president ousted in a 2014 uprising, and Yanukovych’s former chief of staff, Andriy Kluyev. Murayev’s Nashi party — whose name echoes the former extensive Russian youth movement that supported President Vladimir Putin — is regarded as sympathetic to Russia, but Murayev on Sunday pushed back characterizing it as pro-Russia.