The Dnipro Court of Appeal has upheld the seven-year prison sentence for retired General Viktor Nazarov, a former senior Ukrainian Armed Forces commander convicted of deadly negligence leading to the death of 49 Ukrainian troops in the downing of Iliyshyn Il-76 aircraft in the Donbas in 2014.
The three-year-long, painful appeal trial ended on Dec. 11 in the court supporting the prosecution, despite the defendant’s fierce denial of guilt and multiple attempts to get out of the case.
“The Pavlohrad City District Court’s sentence (which convicted Nazarov in 2017) is to be left unaltered,” as lawyer Vitaliy Pogosyan, the legal representative of relatives of the case’s victims, reported on his Facebook page shortly following the decision’s announcement.
Nazarov served as the chief of staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ military action in the war zone of Donbas in the early weeks of Russia’s war in 2014. In July 2014, it was he who was particularly responsible for an operation to deploy reinforcements to the Ukrainian garrison defending the Luhansk Airport surrounded by Russian-backed militants.
Three Ilyshyn Il-76 transport aircraft were to transport some 150 troops from Dnipro directly to the embattled airport. However, in the early hours of June 14, as the group was approaching the destination point, the second of the three aircraft was downed by Russian-backed militants operating man-portable surface-to-air missiles Igla.
All 49 men onboard, including 40 paratroopers with the 25th Airborne Brigade and nine members of the crew, were killed in the crash.
As Ukraine’s biggest single-time military loss at that moment in Donbas, the deadly incident triggered an uproar across the country, with angry crowds storming the Russian Embassy headquarters in Kyiv.
Later, Nazarov, as the operation’s immediate commander, was accused by an official inquiry in the incident of deadly negligence. According to the investigation, the general ignored several sources providing intelligence on man-portable air defense missiles available in militant formations besieging the Luhansk airport.
In violation of military instructions, the commander failed to make all necessary efforts to ensure the security of the arriving air transport at the airfield and in fact sent the three aircraft defenseless against the reported enemy missiles, according to the inquiry.
Ukrainian troops on May 22. The Il-76 plane shot down near Luhansk was carrying forty troops and nine crewmembers. All of them were killed. (AFP)
Despite being indicted of fatal negligence, Nazarov was never suspended in service and later participated in the battles of Ilovaisk and Debaltseve, which resulted in disastrous defeats of the Ukrainian military to combined Russian-militant forces.
During a long trial on the case, the general vehemently denied his guilt, particularly accusing the downed aircraft’s crew of incompetence. He even denied his role in the decision-making process despite being officially the operation’s direct leader and commander.
Nonetheless, two independent official military aviation and tactics expert evaluations carried out in the years after confirmed the direct connection between the general’s failure to take all necessary steps to ensure the protection of the aircraft and the downing that claimed 49 lives.
Moreover, in numerous conversations with the Kyiv Post in the war zone of Donbas, military officers who had been present in the Luhansk Airport during the incident also asserted their solidarity with the court’s decision on the condition of anonymity.
Nazarov refused to offer his apologies to the killed soldiers’ families, claiming that the blame should have been laid on Russian-backed militants rather than his leadership.
Eventually, in March 2017, the Pavlohrad court affirmed the military evaluation results and sentenced Nazarov to 7 years of imprisonment. Relatives of the victims were to get Hr 500,000 ($17.800) in compensations for each of the killed servicemen at the expense of the country’s state budget.
The court never stripped the convicted general officer of his rank. And, being on bail, Nazarov continued serving top positions in the military until he was honorably discharged in August 2019 amid a years-long appeal process.
Notably, the case’s established a precedent of a Ukrainian high-ranking political or military leader brought to justice for incompetent leadership in the war of Donbas. The court’s decision was fiercely protested by then-time Chief of General Staff Viktor Muzhenko, Nazarov’s close friend and commandant, and even by then-time President Petro Poroshenko decrying the “civilian court sentencing a battlefield general” and saying that from now on, no military leader would ever take a complicated decision in action, knowing that he or she can be jailed for possibly inevitable casualties in war.
Nazarov even unsuccessfully tried to sue justice Nataliya Samotkan who had sentenced him.
Finally, during the final hearing on Dec. 10, the general again refused to admit his guilt.
A Russian-backed militant look through the debris of an IL-76 transporter which was taken down by pro-Russian rebels on the outskirts of Luhansk on June 14, 2014.
Two days after the appeal court confirmed the verdict and the penalty.
Lawyer Vitaliy Pogosyan, who had pleaded the case on behalf of the relatives pro bono, considers this an important victory in combating negligent, incompetent leaders defying the lives of soldiers in war.
“In my opinion, had we had this sentence immediately following the Il-76 downing, we could have avoided the tragedies of Ilovaisk and Debaltseve,” the lawyer told the Kyiv Post. “Because immediately after the downing and the momentary death of 49 troops, there was a heavy blow upon the military morale and upon those going to battle in terms of their chances to get killed because of the stupidity of generals. It was this stupid willfulness that precipitated that tragedy (at the Luhansk airport).”
Nazarov, however, is still entitled to file a cassation appeal. But despite that, lawyer Pogosyan expects Nazarov to be finally put into jail under the sentence within a month. It is possible that he also files for the deferral of imprisonment until the cassation appeal ruling but, according to the lawyer, such pleas are rarely met in Ukrainian courts.
“The most important thing for me is that today I have finally seen the eyes of the killed soldiers’ loved ones getting a relief,” Progosyan added. “They are finally seeing this nightmare coming to an end.”
