Yanukovych and 16 Former High-Ranking Officials to Be Tried in Case of Usurpation of Power and Crimes Against Maidan

Prosecutors from the Office of the Prosecutor General, together with investigators from the State Bureau of Investigation, have completed a special pre-trial investigation in the criminal case against former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and 16 former heads of state authorities and law enforcement agencies. This was reported by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Ruslan Kravchenko and the State Bureau of Investigation.

According to the investigation, after being elected president in 2010, Yanukovych created and led a criminal organization that included representatives of the highest political and law enforcement leadership of the state. Its members, law enforcement claims, used their powers to concentrate authority, control the law enforcement and judicial systems, and pursue their own political and economic interests.

The case's defendants include a former prime minister, prosecutor general, minister of internal affairs and his deputy, head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and his first deputy – head of the Anti-Terrorist Center, heads of certain SBU units, minister of defense, chief of the General Staff – commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, commander of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, heads of the Kyiv police and the special unit "Berkut."

Also held criminally liable are the former head of the Department of Public Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kyiv and the former director of the Department of Material Support of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who, according to the investigation, facilitated the implementation of criminal decisions despite not being part of the organization.

Within the investigation, law enforcement examined the mechanisms of the power system functioning from 2010 to 2014. According to the SBI, this system ensured control over all branches of power and suppression of any resistance, including mass protests.

A separate part of the case concerns the events of the Revolution of Dignity. The investigation believes that after the authorities refused to sign the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union at the end of 2013, mass peaceful protests were perceived by the state leadership as a threat to retaining power.

According to law enforcement, Yanukovych decided to involve law enforcement agencies and the Armed Forces of Ukraine to forcibly counter the protesters. The organization of these actions was entrusted to the heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, SBU, Ministry of Defense, Prosecutor General's Office, and other members of the organization.

To suppress the protests, according to the investigation, units of law enforcement agencies, internal troops, and military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were used. Special means, military equipment, and firearms were applied against protest participants.

The climax of the events was the shootings of protesters in central Kyiv on February 20, 2014.

According to the investigation, from November 21, 2013, to February 20, 2014, as a result of the actions of the organization's members, 70 civilians died, over 1,200 protesters sustained injuries of varying severity, and more than 100 law enforcement officers were also injured.

Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko noted that earlier, as the senior prosecutor of the group, he supervised the procedural leadership in the case of Yanukovych's state treason and signed the indictment against him for aiding the aggressive war waged by the Russian Federation. At that time, the court found the former president guilty and sentenced him to 13 years in prison.

According to Ruslan Kravchenko, the current proceeding concerns not individual episodes but the functioning of a system created for the illegal seizure, appropriation, and retention of state power.

All suspects in the case have been subjected to preventive measures in the form of detention. Since most of them are hiding in the territory of the Russian Federation or in temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, the investigation was conducted under a special in absentia procedure.

The main legal qualification in the case is the creation and activity of a criminal organization under Article 255 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. After the completion of the pre-trial investigation, the case materials are to be submitted to the court.

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