Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda has stripped former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov of a Lithuanian state award.
The presidential decree states that Azarov degraded the name of the award recipient and was therefore removed from the award list.
The former Ukrainian premier was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of the Grand Duke Gediminas of Lithuania in November 1998 during the then Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus’ visit to Ukraine. At the time, Azarov was head of Ukraine’s State Tax Service.
Azarov served as prime minister between 2010–2014 under President Viktor Yanukovych.
Azarov resigned as prime minister during the 2014 Maidan protests when people took to the streets to overthrow the Yanukovych government. Azarov is currently living in Russia.
As the Kyiv Independent has previously reported, Azarov was indicted last year by the Ukrainian prosecution service for “justifying” Russia’s war in Ukraine and for calling for the “overthrow of the constitutional order”.
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