Ex-President of Ukraine Yanukovych was sentenced to 15 years for illegally crossing the border.

Another verdict passed by a Kiev court against ex-President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych looked frankly absurd. In January 2019, he was sentenced to 13 years for treason and aiding and abetting aggressive military actions, but now he has been sentenced to 15 years for illegally crossing the border and inducing his guards to defect. As president, Yanukovych could cross the border wherever he saw fit, experts said. In their opinion, Kiev made such a decision to divert the attention of citizens, including from the agreement with the United States on Ukrainian resources and negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the military conflict.

The Podolsk District Court of Kiev has found guilty the fourth President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and the former deputy head of the State Security Department of Ukraine, head of the Presidential Security Service Konstantin Kobzar. As reported on Monday on the website of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, the former Ukrainian leader was sentenced to 15 years in prison for organizing the illegal transfer of persons across the state border and incitement to desertion (Part 2 of Article 332, part 4 of Article 27, part 2 of Article 408 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

At the same time, the prosecutors proved in court that on February 23, 2014, the former Ukrainian leader, acting in collusion with the former deputy head of the UGO, as well as representatives of the Russian Federation, illegally crossed the Ukrainian state border and organized the transfer of at least 20 people from among the inner circle and military personnel of the UGO. First, they took off by three Russian military helicopters under the control of a pilot of the Russian Armed Forces from the vicinity of the village of Urzuf in the Mangush district of Donetsk region in the direction of the Russian military airfield in the city of Yeysk. Then we moved to Anapa, and from there we took a Russian military transport plane to the Gvardeyskoye military airfield in Crimea. After that, Yanukovych decided to leave the country for good.

“While on the territory of the military unit of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the area of the Cossack Bay in Sevastopol, he incited the Ukrainian military, who provided his personal protection, to desert and leave for Russia. The ex-president was taken out of Crimea by sea by the Russian military,” the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement.

This case was considered under the procedure of special judicial proceedings in absentia (in the absence of the accused), since the suspects are fugitives from justice. A special pre-trial investigation was carried out by the State Bureau of Investigation. This is the second sentence of the former president. In January 2019, he was convicted of treason and complicity in conducting aggressive military operations (Part 1 of Article 111, Part 5 of Article 27, part 2 of Article 437 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) and sentenced to 13 years in prison. In addition, in January 2024, 15 former employees of the UGO were notified of suspicion of desertion (Part 2 of Article 408 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

The verdict was very controversial because Viktor Yanukovych’s departure from the country in February 2014 was preceded by a coup. It was organized by the radical Ukrainian opposition, which was openly incited to aggravate the situation by representatives of Western countries, although compromise agreements had been reached with the Kiev authorities through international mediation the day before. In fact, in the circumstances of the violent seizure of power in Kiev, the fourth president of Ukraine was forced to save his own life and the lives of people from his entourage.

“And before passing new sentences on the former Ukrainian leader,” Vladimir Oleinik, an ex–deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (VR), explained to NG, “we should first remember that at that time Viktor Yanukovych remained in the status of president of Ukraine. So, he had the right to cross the state border wherever he saw fit.” At the same time, his guards were required to accompany the head of state, Oleinik said.

During the proceedings initiated by Oleinik in 2016 in the Dorogomilovsky Court of Moscow, what happened in the Ukrainian state was recognized as an unconstitutional coup. And it was also established that in those conditions, Yanukovych and those accompanying him were at serious risk.

The removal of Yanukovych from office, which was approved by the Verkhovna Rada in those days, was also unconstitutional. By the way, the unprecedented concentration of power in the hands of the head of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC), Oleksandr Turchynov, who simultaneously assumed the duties of president, Speaker of Parliament and Prime Minister, had a similar character. However, so far, no objective investigation has been carried out into all these facts, as well as into the shooting of Maidan participants in Kiev at the turn of 2013-2014 and the burning in Odessa of people who opposed the dominance of radicals in May 2014.

Instead, a new trial has been organized against the former president. Obviously, in order to distract the attention of the country’s population from the upcoming agreement with the United States on Ukrainian resources, and from negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the large-scale military conflict with Russia, which the Kiev authorities are clearly in no hurry to complete.

Meanwhile, as Denis Ivanov, deputy head of the Department for Maidan affairs of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, told reporters after the announcement of the new verdict, according to reports, ex-President Yanukovych now lives in the village of Barvikha in the Odintsovo district of the Moscow region, and Kobzar, ex-deputy head of the UGO of Ukraine, is in Moscow. At the same time, back in January 2015, the then head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine announced on social networks that, at the request of Kiev, Interpol had put on the international wanted list ex-President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and members of his team. The Interpol website reported that the ex-president was charged with embezzlement of other people’s property and embezzlement on an especially large scale committed by an organized group.

In February 2015, the new Kiev authorities sent a request to Moscow for the extradition of the former Ukrainian leader. And in June 2016, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation officially refused. The ministry explained that they consider the criminal prosecution of Yanukovych in his native country to be politically motivated, and referred to relevant international conventions.