The lawyer of one of the Russian soldiers captured in Ukraine last spring has been found shot dead, Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor said on March 25.
Chief Military Prosecutor of Ukraine Anatoliy Matios told journalists at a news conference in Kyiv that the lawyer, Yuriy Grabovskiy, had been shot in the head. Grabovskiy’s body was found buried in Cherkasy Oblast near the town of Zhashkiv, 150 kilometers south of Kyiv, Matios said.
Grabovskiy had been missing since March 7, according to the Ukrainian National Bar Association. Following his disappearance, there were reports in the Ukrainian media that the lawyer had been kidnapped. Then on March 9, a post appeared on his Facebook page stating that he had been taken to Egypt against his will. The post was geotagged to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.
Later, on March 21, Matios said that one of Grabovskiy’s suspected kidnappers had been detained at Odesa airport. He also said that the March 9 post made on Grabovskiy’s Facebook page had not been made by the lawyer himself.
Matios said that the detained suspect, who is a Ukrainian citizen, had claimed that the Russian special services were behind the kidnapping.
Ukraine’s SBU security service established the location of the lawyer’s body on March 24, the day it detained a second suspect in the kidnapping of Grabovskiy, Matios said.
Matios said the suspects are both Ukrainian citizens.
Special operation
Grabovskiy was a defense lawyer for Russian soldier Alexander Aleksandrov, who, along with his fellow Russian soldier Yevgeniy Yerofeyev, are on trial in Ukraine on terrorism charges. The soldiers were captured in Luhansk Oblast in May 2015, and shortly after that told OSCE international observers that they were part of a Russian reconnaissance team.
However, Russia said that the servicemen had resigned from the army before crossing into eastern Ukraine. In court, the men retracted their previous testimony, and instead claimed that they were members of a pro-Russian militia when they were captured.
According to Matios, investigators are exploring the possibility that Grabovskiy’s kidnapping and murder were part of a special operation by Russian forces designed to discredit the trial of the captured Russians.
Pressure on lawyers
But Oksana Sokolovskaya, the lawyer of Yerofeyev, says that Ukraine’s Military Prosecutor’s Office and Prosecutor General’s Office have been putting pressure on the captured Russians’ defense lawyers.
Sokolovskaya complained that she had been receiving threats via social media because she was defending Yerofeyev, and even asked the court for protection for her family and property. The court granted her request on March 21.
Sokolovskaya said pressure was exerted on her and Grabovskiy by Ukrainian prosecutors following her appeal to the court in November 2015 that Aleksandrov and Yerofeyev be formally declared prisoners of war.
“(After that appeal) all of the actions meant to remove myself and Grabovskiy from this case started, like searches, criminal charges, (and the) seizure of Grabovskiy’s personal belongings,” Sokolovskaya said in an interview with Ukrainian television’s 112 channel on March 20.
“Can all this mean what the Russian Federation, not Ukraine, is gaining benefits from exerting pressure on lawyers of Yerofeyev and Aleksandrov? she asked.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Savchuk can be reached at [email protected]
