On the second anniversary of the 2014 shooting of anti-government protesters, people attend a memorial ceremony at the graves of slain Maidan activists in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.

Yuriy Dyachyshyn
/ AFP/Getty Images

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Originally published on April 14, 2017 1:59 pm

Paul Manafort quit as Donald Trump's campaign manager last summer amid questions about his consulting work for a disgraced Ukrainian leader who now is a wanted man in his own country.

While Manafort vanished from Ukraine's political scene even earlier, his name lives on in Kiev.

Ukrainian investigators are seeking to understand his ties, if any, to former President Viktor Yanukovych at the time of the shooting of anti-government protesters on the capital's central square, known as the Maidan, in February 2014.

Manafort is central to questions about the extent of Russianinfluence in the U.S. presidential election. The FBI is investigating whether Trump associates coordinated with Russia in those efforts, although it has not disclosed which individuals are under scrutiny. Manafort served as Trump's campaign chairman during the spring and summer of 2016.

Manafort himself is not the subject of a Ukrainian investigation. But following the publication in February of allegedly hacked text messages in which Manafort's daughter Andrea refers to "blood money" earned in Ukraine – presumably a reference to the deaths on the central square – prosecutors in Kiev want to know exactly when he cut his ties to Yanukovych.

"Of course, we will check that out in the context of whether Manafort was in Ukraine at the time of the Maidan and specifically what he was doing in