The Podil District Court of Kyiv has sentenced former President Viktor Yanukovych to fifteen years in prison in the case of illegal border crossing and incitement to desertion. The verdict was announced on Monday by Judge Lyudmyla Kazmyrenko, as reported by prosecutor for Maidan cases, Denys Ivanov, who represented the state prosecution in this case.
"The Podil District Court has sentenced former President Viktor Yanukovych to fifteen years in prison for illegal border crossing and incitement to desertion. The court also sentenced Konstantyn Kobzar, then deputy head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) and head of the President's Security Service, to ten years in prison," said Ivanov.
According to Ivanov, this was the punishment that the prosecutors had requested for Yanukovych and Kobzar.
"The court agreed that the charges were substantiated and proven and sentenced them to the maximum possible punishment," the prosecutor commented on the verdict.
In June 2022, the State Bureau of Investigation sent the indictment against former President Viktor Yanukovych and his head of security, Konstantyn Kobzar, to the court.
They were charged with incitement and committing desertion, as well as illegal border crossing of individuals across Ukraine's state border.
Law enforcement discovered that on February 23, 2014, at approximately 1:30 AM, Viktor Yanukovych, acting together with his bodyguards and other individuals, illegally crossed the Ukrainian state border with at least 20 people via three Russian military helicopters from the vicinity of the village of Urzuf in the Mangush district of Donetsk region.
Additionally, it was established that on February 24, 2014, Viktor Yanukovych decided to permanently leave Ukraine and, while on the territory of one of the Russian Black Sea Fleet military units in the Gagarinsky district of Sevastopol, persuaded his head of security, Konstantyn Kobzar, to desert.
The serviceman avoided military service and, with the assistance of Russian law enforcement officials, left Ukraine in the night of February 24, 2014, by sea vessel, together with the former president and several other individuals, and did not return to his place of service.
