President Viktor Yushchenko stripped two key figures in his poisoning of honorary rank Monday, taking way away their benefits and prestigious titles.
Yushchenko, who was an opposition leader at the time of the poisoning, fell seriously ill during the fiercely contested 2004 presidential election campaign after having dinner with top security officials, Ihor Smeshko and Volodymyr Satsyuk.
The illness left his face pockmarked and discolored and he was later diagnosed as having suffered dioxin poisoning.
No arrests have been made in the case, and a probe is still under way. But many observers point the finger at Russia - both because Yushchenko was running against a Kremlin-backed candidate and because Russia is one of four countries that produces the specific formula of dioxin used to poison him.
On Monday, Yushchenko annulled a January 2004 decree issued by his predecessor, Leonid Kuchma, that elevated Smeshko, then Ukraine's security service chief, to the rank of ambassador.
He also canceled Kuchma's August 2004 decree, which gave Satsyuk, Smeshko's deputy at the time, a general's rank.
Yushchenko dismissed both decrees as "groundless," according to the presidential Web site.
The Kremlin backed Yushchenko's rival, Viktor Yanukovych, in the 2004 presidential election, which deepened rifts between Moscow and the West.
Yanukovych was initially declared the winner, but massive street protests - dubbed the Orange Revolution - broke out, and the Supreme Court threw out the results on grounds of fraud. Yushchenko won a court-ordered repeat vote.
Yushchenko has hinted that he knows who is responsible for his poisoning. While refraining from naming the alleged culprits until the investigation is over, he has intimated the poisoning was masterminded from outside the country. ( NV )