Since May 2017, the Obolonskiy District Court of Kyiv has been considering the high-treason case of fugitive Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych.
Many of Ukraine’s top officials, such as Oleksandr Turchynov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council; Arseniy Yatsenyuk, former prime minister; Arsen Avakov, interior minister; and even President Petro Poroshenko were summoned to the court to give testimony as witnesses for the prosecution.
The accusation is based on a letter that Yanukovych wrote to the Russian President Vladimir Putin after fleeing power on Feb. 22, 2014. The letter was an official request to send Russian troops to Ukraine to return him to power.
In July, Yanukovych said he wasn’t going to take part “in a sham trial, organized in Kyiv” and withdrew his lawyers from the court. But in December they returned to the process.
Prosecutors say that by officially addressing to Putin for military help, Yanukovych aided him to justify the Kremlin’s invasion and occupation of Crimea as well as the start the war in the eastern Donbas in 2014.
Yanukovych’s defense lawyers said that it was Ukraine’s parliament illegal decision to strip Yanukovych from power, as well as the inactivity of current Ukrainian government officials, that had led to Kremlin occupation of Crimea.
The officials have been giving testimony since December with the last one, Poroshenko, questioned on Feb. 21.
Politicians, as well as Vitaliy Serdyuk, Yanukovych’s defense lawyer, turned the trial into a circus.
They were exchanging accusations, making political statements, floundering, as well as revealing new facts about Russia’s occupation of Crimea.
Turchynov was caught lying in 2014 about Ukraine’s army readiness to guard Crimea.
“What was I supposed to say to Ukrainians in the times of separatists’ seizure of government building all over Ukraine, as well as growing threat of Russia’s invasion from East, South, and North?” Turchynov asked during his testimony on Feb. 15.
“That our army was almost destroyed? That 99 percent of law enforcers in Crimea and Donbas betrayed Ukraine? Such truth would plunge the country into chaos.”
And Poroshenko, who promised to come to the court to give testimony in person, didn’t show up in court and testified via Skype.
Yanukovych fled Kyiv to Kharkiv, then Crimea on Feb. 22, 2014, and ended up in Russia, where he has been hiding until the present day. So in Kyiv, he has been judged in absentia.
Late February 2014 Russia started the active phase of Crimea occupation, sent its troops, the so-called “little green men” to the Ukrainian peninsula.
Crimea was occupied after March 16, 2014, illegal referendum, guarded by little green men.
Russia has officially denied recognizing the new Ukrainian government, in 2014 headed by Turchynov and Yatsenyuk.
Kyiv Post collected the highlights from the top-officials’ testimony and fact-checked their words with the statements they made back in 2014.
Russian soldiers stand near one of the Ukrainian military bases in Crimea in March 2014. (Anastasia Vlasova)
Poroshenko
Ukraine’s president was supposed to give testimony against his predecessor, Yanukovych, in person on Feb. 21. Since early morning, National Police doubled security near Obolonskiy District Court of Kyiv, where Poroshenko was supposed to testify from 2 p.m. to 3-30 p.m.
Numerous female journalists, who came to the court that day, claimed police forced them to unfasten their coats and show if they had tops on them. Police officers were searching for a Femen activist, who was going to organize a bare breasts protest.
Human rights watchdogs saw a serious human rights violation in those checks, and police called such actions necessary.
But Poroshenko didn’t show up in the courtroom and gave testimony via Skype, claimed he was too busy.
The judge stopped Poroshenko’s questioning after Serdyuk asked Poroshenko about his New Year’s secret vacation on the Maldives.
Serdyuk was driving parallel with his client Yanukovych, being illegally stripped of power by the Ukrainian parliament “as the one who fled Kyiv and by that self-withdrawn from the post in February 2014”.
“Why weren’t you stripped from presidency back then, when you nobody knew about your exact location for a week?” Serdyuk asked.
In court: Poroshenko said that he, then a member of Ukraine’s parliament, visited Crimea on Feb. 28 in order to persuade local authorities to negotiate with the post-EuroMaidan Ukrainian government.
Poroshenko said he arrived in Crimea in the midst of pro-Russian protests in the peninsula; he escaped several attempts to attack him, while heading to the Crimean Parliament building for negotiations on Feb. 28. He even personally arranged a meeting with one of the self-proclaimed leaders of Crimea, Vladimir Konstantinov.
But the negotiations failed, as the parliament was already seized by the so-called polite or little green men of Crimean self-defense, later recognized by Putin as Russian soldiers.
“Those were servicemen of the Russian Army – both from the Russian Black Fleet units based in Crimea, as well as from regular forces, deployed to Crimea on Feb. 20 through the airports and ports of Ukraine without Ukraine’s government approval,” Poroshenko said.
In 2014: On Feb. 28 Poroshenko indeed visited Simferopol.
In an interview to the local press in Simferopol airport, Poroshenko said his main goals in Crimea were: to lead negotiations with Konstantinov and other members of Crimean Parliament in order not to escalate conflicts on the peninsula, stand for the territorial integrity of Ukraine, as well as assure Crimeans the news about nationalists going to come to the peninsula – were nothing but fake. All his plans failed after Crimeans forced him to leave the peninsula.
Acting Minister of Defense of Ukraine Michail Koval (R) and Oleksandr Turchynov, speaker of the Ukrainian parliament and the acting president of Ukraine, attend military drills in Chernigiv Oblast in April 2014. (president.gov.ua)
Turchynov
Turchynov gave his testimony in court on Feb. 15. The court questioned him for five hours. Turchynov, who was elected as acting speaker of parliament, as well as acting President and chief commander of Ukraine in February, after Yanukovych fled to Russia.
During his testimony, Turchynov called Serdyuk “a clown” and questioned his intellect several times.
In court: Turchynov said that on Feb. 21-22 Yanukovych, chiefs of the law enforcement agencies, ministers of his government fled Kyiv to Kharkiv, then Crimea and Russia. Ukraine’s opposition wasn’t prepared to react properly to a growing threat; the same days Russia started the occupation of Crimea and fueled separatists’ protests and administrative buildings seizure all over Ukraine’s east and south.
“Neither Yanukovych nor his allies did anything to contact with me those days. State treasury was almost empty,” Turchynov said.
Together with Avakov and Valentyn Nalivaychenko (former head of Security Service of Ukraine), Turchynov was searching for Yanukovych all over Ukraine. They knew Yanukovych was going to flee from Kharkiv to Russia and ordered the border guards to block him. “I thought I would persuade him to resign,” Turchynov said.
But Yanukovych managed to run away to Crimea with the help of the State Guard of Ukraine officers, who “betrayed their oath to the Ukrainian people”.
Turchynov said that 99 percent of law enforcers from police, SBU and 70 percent of military officers from Crimea betrayed Ukraine and cooperated with the aggressor on Crimea.
Turchynov said during the Security and Defense Council meeting on Feb. 28, 2014, he discovered there were only 5,000 military servicemen, Ukraine could have set against more than 200,000 Russian armed forces, ready to invade Ukraine.
During the same meeting, it was decided to start the mobilization, but that was also impossible to do fast, as the military recruitment system was destroyed also.
Turchynov said he ordered those military servicemen, who were blocked in Crimea to protect Ukrainian military bases and ships and even to use weapons for that if needed.
In 2014: Turchynov told lb.ua news website on June 27, he ordered the military to use weapons against the Russian invaders, but the commanders of Ukraine’s military units, based in Crimea, disobeyed his order.
On March 1 in his address to Ukrainians, Turchynov said Ukraine’s army was fully ready to fight with the aggressor and Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council created the detailed action plan in case of Russian military invasion of Ukraine.
And Yatsenyuk said the government was fully ready to support the army financially.
“All those armchair analysts would put blame on me, but somebody had to make real decisions back then, and I did it and took full responsibility for it,” Turchynov said in court on Feb. 15, responding to Serdyuk’s accusations in lying to Ukrainians.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk, former prime minister of Ukraine, testifies in the Obolonskiy District Court of Kyiv on Dec. 11. (Ukrafoto)
Yatsenyuk
Yatsenyuk testified on Dec. 11. When Serdyuk asked Yatsenyuk how his life had changed since the EuroMaidan Revolution, the former prime minister responded: “I’ve got spinal disc herniation. But I am extremely proud that I had the honor to be the head the government in a war-torn country.” Yatsenyuk was appointed Ukraine’s Prime Minister on Feb. 27, 2014.
In court: Unlike Turchynov, Yatsenyuk said in court, he had a phone conversation with Yanukovych in the morning on Feb. 22, the same day Yanukovych disappeared from the radars of the Ukrainian government and was considered by the Rada as the one, who self-withdrew from power.
“So when exactly did you realize that Yanukovych withdrew himself from power?” Serdyuk asked.
And Yatsenyuk couldn’t recall the exact hour and started making excuses for why did the Rada vote for the new government so soon.
“Hey, the president disappeared, nobody knew where he was. There was no connection with him or his allies,” Yatsenyuk said.
The day before, on Feb. 21, Yanukovych agreed to sign the agreement with the opposition leaders and the representatives of Russia, Germany, and Poland.
The agreement was aimed to calm the EuroMaidan protests in Kyiv and return Ukraine to the 2004 constitution, giving back more power to Ukraine’s parliament.
“But then only Russian delegate, Vladimir Lukin, refused to sign the agreement, and a day after, in his address to the Ukrainians, Yanukovych said he also wouldn’t sign any agreements,” Yatsenyuk said.
Yatsenyuk described Yanukovych as a friend of Russia, who signed more than 50 cooperation agreements with Kremlin, including the 2010s Kharkiv Agreements, that prolonged the deployment of Russian Black Fleet military units in Crimea until 2042 in exchange for the gas discount.
“Putin and Medvedev were saying Ukraine was of Russia’s sphere of interests. I understood that they won’t cooperate,” Yatsenyuk said.
But Kremlin leaders surprised Yatsenyuk. In November 2014 Medvedev called him personally and wanted to talk about “the development of dual economic and social relations between two countries”.
“It was a strange call. He omitted the topic of Crimea. And I told him: Get your bastards out of Ukraine (Donbas and Crimea) and then we’ll talk,” Yatsenyuk said.
“By that call, they (Russia) de facto recognized our government,” Yatsenyuk said.
When Serdyuk asked Yatsenyuk what has he personally done not to let Russia annex Ukraine’s peninsula, Yatsenyuk said that he had small powers in his lawmaker’s status, but as soon as on Feb. 27, 2014, was elected as a new prime minister of Ukraine, he did everything for the world to condemn Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
In 2014: On Nov. 27, Yatsenyuk’s spokesperson Olga Lappo told Interfax news agency that Yatsenyuk had his first phone conversation with prime minister vs prime minister format. “It was initiated by Russian side and Yatsenyuk urged Medvedev that Russia should stick to the Minsk agreements,” Lappo said, revealing no more details.
After Yanukovych fled Kyiv to Kharkiv on Feb. 21, where he conducted the meeting with Party of Regions. But in the morning on Feb. 22, he tried to fly to Russia on a private helicopter and then disappeared in an unknown direction.
President Petro Poroshenko’s then chief of staff Boris Lozhkin (L), Interior Minister Arsen Avakov (C) and Poroshenko attend the National Council of Reforms meeting on May 25, 2016. (UNIAN) (source)
Avakov
Avakov gave his testimony after Yatsenyuk, on Dec. 11. The Interior Minister told the court about his attempts to find Yanukovych and not to let him flee to Russia. He described how lost and disoriented were the Ukrainian government officials in Kyiv.
Avakov said he found out about Yanukovych’s letter to Putin only after Russia’s United Nations Ambassador Vitaly Churkin presented a letter during the UN meeting in March 2014.
Serdyuk tried to throw Avakov off balance by asking him if he financed EuroMaidan protests.
“Of course, I brought cakes to the protesters, not Roshen cakes, as you might think, Kharkiv confectionary fabric cakes Delis,” Avakov said.
Avakov was appointed the acting interior minister and then an interior minister in February 2014.
In court: Avakov said that after Yanukovych and his predecessor interior minister Vitaly Zakharchenko disappeared, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry was ruined. Law enforcers were uncontrolled and demoralized.
“Together with Nalivaychenko, we went to Sevastopol to search for Yanukovych on Feb. 23-24. I had no plans to arrest him, I wanted to talk and persuade him to come back to Kyiv,” Avakov said.
Avakov said he managed to pass a note to Yanukovych with the request for a meeting. But Yanukovych was hiding from him on the territory of a Russian military base.
The same days, Russian forces seized the military bases of the Ukrainian army in Crimea.
In 2014: During a press briefing in Kyiv on Feb. 26, Avakov said that together with Nalivaychenko he had all the chances to arrest Yanukovych, they were searching in Crimea with the local Alfa special squad of Interior Ministry.
“But we hadn’t arrested him in order not to provoke local pro-Russian citizens of Crimea,” Avakov said.
