Oleksiy Honcharuk says Volodymyr Zelenskiy was not part of any attempt to ‘manipulate investigations’ into energy firm

Ukraine’s president will emerge from the Donald Trump impeachment inquiry unscathed, the country’s prime minister has predicted.

Ukraine’s leadership has been anxious to avoid becoming embroiled in the US political dogfight over the pressure allegedly placed on President Volodymyr Zelenskiy by Trump and his associates to announce an investigation into Burisma, a gas company with ties to the former Democratic vice-president Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.

Democrats are seeking to prove Trump withheld aid to Ukraine until Zelenskiy complied with his demand to dig for dirt on Biden.

David Holmes, a state department official, told House impeachment investigators that the US ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, held a one-to-one meeting with Zelenskiy’s close aide Andriy Yermak in Kyiv on 26 July, following which Sondland was overheard telling Trump “President Zelenskiy loves your ass” and would do anything Trump asked. Sondland claimed that other US officials were excluded from the Yermak meeting at the instruction of the Ukrainians, according to Holmes.

Speaking in London, Honcharuk said he had no private knowledge of the Burisma situation but that he was sure that the impeachment inquiry would show Zelenskiy “was never part of any attempt to manipulate investigations”.

Appointed in August, the 39-year-old Honcharuk emphasised the need for international support in Ukraine’s fight against corruption.

In her testimony to the impeachment inquiry on Thursday, the White House’s former top expert on Russia Fiona Hill said the fight against corruption was being undermined by a separate foreign policy conducted by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and other allies of the president.

Honcharuk sought to reassure those who were sceptical that Zelenskiy was freeing his government of oligarch influence, and insisted money illegally obtained by oligarchs would never be returned to them.

Zelenskiy has been accused of still being under the influence of oligarchs, especially the Cypriot-Ukranian billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky, who owns the TV station that used to run Zelenskiy old television show. Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Bohdan, also represented Kolomoisky in legal disputes concerning PrivatBank, the largest commercial bank in Ukraine.

The court of appeal in London last month upheld an asset freeze imposed against Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov, the former owners of PrivatBank in 2017. The court also allowed the bank to pursue claims against the two men. PrivatBank was nationalised in December 2016 after regulators found a $5.5bn (£4.3bn) hole in its balance sheet, much of it allegedly stemming from fraudulent and related-party lending.

The bank is under new management and is trying to recover – through English and US courts – assets it says were stolen by the previous owners. Kolomoisky is seeking the overturn of the 2016 nationalisation in Ukrainian courts.

Kolomoskiy and Bogolyubov have denied any allegations of wrongdoing in relation to PrivatBank. Kolomoskiy has previously dismissed the allegations as nonsense.

Honcharuk said: “I am sure the president knows that the case is outstanding for the rest of the world and for the Ukraine itself. This is a pre-eminent issue for Ukraine. That is why we stand firmly on the position that neither the bank itself nor the money should be returned to the former investors – that is our clear position.”

Honcharuk said he expected a top line agreement between the International Monetary Fund and Ukraine to replace a $3.9bn stand-by facility to be ready very soon. The IMF is demanding signals that Ukraine is on the path to irreversible reform, including an independent judiciary rule of law and anti-corruption bureau.

Honcharuk said no vested interests had been involved in the budget recently agreed by the parliament at record speed.

He also claimed the incredible pace of reform meant “influential groups feel very bad and that is why they are speaking in pubic broadcast interviews, and in media, but this only demonstrates that these people pretend they are still influential when that is no longer the case”.

He said there would be no attempt to appease any vested interest, adding the biggest value the government needed to create was trust.