Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed a key Kremlin aide whom the United States and European Union have sanctioned for his role in coordinating the takeover of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula.
Putin's order was signed on October 9 for Sergei Glazyev who had advised the president since 2012.
On October 1, it was reported that Glazyev was appointed minister for integration and macroeconomics of the Eurasian Economic Commission.
Kyiv wants to arrest him for "committing grave crimes against the foundations of Ukraine's national security, peace, and the international order."
In particular, Ukraine's Prosecutor-General’s Office in summer 2016 began releasing audio intercepts of Glazyev allegedly orchestrating elements of Russia's preparations for and then coordinating the occupation of Crimea beginning in late February 2014.
The intercepts also showed Glazyev during that period coordinating civil unrest in other regions and cities of Ukraine, in particular Odesa, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya, and Donetsk.
Glazyev has called the audio intercepts "nonsense."
In 2014 the EU and United States imposed restrictive measures on Glazyev for his role in Russia's annexation of the Crimea.
Pro-Russian elements in late February 2014 began taking over government buildings throughout southeastern Ukraine in Luhansk, Donetsk, Odesa, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhya. Ukrainian authorities by April 2014 took back all but two, in Donetsk and Luhansk, the country's two easternmost regions known as the Donbas.
The situation escalated that month when a Kremlin-backed armed uprising erupted in the Donbas.
The war, in its sixth year, has killed more than 13,000 people.
