The Podilskyi District Court of Kyiv has sentenced former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych to 15 years of imprisonment for illegal crossing of the state border and incitement to desertion.
The verdict was pronounced on Monday by Judge Liudmyla Kazmyrenko, according to Denys Ivanov, a prosecutor in the Maidan cases, who represented the state prosecution in the proceedings, Ukrinform reports.
“The Podilskyi District Court sentenced former President Viktor Yanukovych to 15 years of imprisonment in the case concerning illegal border crossing and incitement to desertion. In addition, the court sentenced Kostiantyn Kobzar — at the time, Deputy Chief of the State Guard Department and Head of the President’s Security Service — to ten years of imprisonment,” Ivanov stated.
According to the prosecutor, the penalties imposed correspond to the sentences requested by the prosecution.
“The court accepted the prosecution’s arguments, found the charges substantiated and proven, and imposed the maximum sentences provided by law,” Ivanov noted.
As previously reported by Ukrinform, in June 2022, the State Bureau of Investigation submitted to the court the indictment against former President Viktor Yanukovych and his security chief Kostiantyn Kobzar.
The defendants were accused of inciting and committing desertion, as well as the illegal transfer of individuals across Ukraine’s state border.
Investigators established that on 23 February 2014, at approximately 1:30, Viktor Yanukovych, acting in concert with his security personnel and other individuals, illegally transported at least 20 persons across the state border of Ukraine, outside of a designated checkpoint, utilizing three helicopters belonging to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, departing from the vicinity of Urzuf village, Mangush district, Donetsk region, to the territory of the Russian Federation.
Moreover, it was determined that on 24 February 2014, Viktor Yanukovych, having decided to permanently flee Ukraine, while located at a military facility of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the Gagarinsky District of Sevastopol, incited the Head of his Security Service, Kostiantyn Kobzar, to commit desertion.
Subsequently, the serviceman evaded military service and, with the assistance of Russian security forces, departed Ukrainian territory by sea overnight on 24 February 2014, alongside the former president and several other individuals, failing to return to his military duties thereafter.
Source: Yanukovych sentenced to 15 years in prison for illegal border crossing
