Obolonsky District Court of Kyiv has begun to study evidence in criminal proceedings on charges of ex-President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych in high treason.
At the beginning of the court session on Thursday, Viktor Yanukovych’s public defender Vitaliy Meshechek said he had studied the case materials in full and ready to participate in the process, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported.
After that, the presiding judge Vladyslav Deviatko said that the court was about to start studying the evidence in this case. “Thus, we have completed the preparatory actions, and we can proceed to investigate the evidence in this criminal proceeding,” the judge said.
Further, prosecutors of the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office began to present the evidence they had collected, the first of which was an appeal by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin to the Federation Council dated March 1, 2014 on the use of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine “before the normalization of the social and political situation in that country.”
Yanukovych on Nov. 28, 2016 was named a suspect in a criminal case pursuant to Part 1 of Article 111 (state treason), Part 5 of Article 27, Part 3 of Article 110 (abetting deliberate acts committed with the aim of changing Ukrainian state borders in violation of the Constitution of Ukraine) and Part 5 of Article 27, Part 2 of Article 437 (abetting military aggression against Ukraine) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
