Mass protests have been one of the tools used by the Ukrainian people in its conflicts with the government. It is another matter altogether that after each such revolution, which actually never deserved that name, things most definitely failed to get better, and sometimes got worse. We all remember the Revolution on Granite of October 1990, when students achieved the fulfillment of some of their demands, including the dismissal of Prime Minister (then Chairman of the Ukrainian SSR Council of Ministers) Vitalii Masol, who was actually not that bad a leader. Next came the Orange Revolution of fall 2004, when people came out against the third presidential term for Leonid Kuchma and his subsequent efforts to make Viktor Yanukovych his successor. With Kuchma’s friend and future chairman of the Yalta European Strategy’s supervisory board, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski acting as the mediator, the situation was resolved, ensuring Kuchma’s immunity from prosecution and a reduction of Viktor Yushchenko’s powers. As we know, the public’s enchanted admiration for Yushchenko quickly turned to a feeling of major disappointment.
The abovementioned protests were peaceful. However, the events of late 2013 and early 2014 were marked by violence and killings in the downtown of the nation’s capital. The Revolution of Dignity was bloody, with over a hundred people killed during the Euromaidan. Why did it happen and who did benefit from it? These questions remain not fully answered, because violence was only gaining momentum ever since the assault on students early on November 30, 2013. The impression is that someone was pulling the strings to increase tensions. Not surprisingly, the beneficiaries of the ensuing events included certain clans within the country and outside forces, but not the Maidan protesters themselves. Was there a chance to stop this tragic scenario? Yes, there was. Yanukovych could have seized it by renouncing power. But he did not, opting to drown the Maidan protest in blood instead, and then to call for Russian troops to be sent to Ukraine. Moreover, he has effectively become a scapegoat in the hands of Ukrainian oligarchs and the Putin regime.
Ex-president Viktor Yanukovych will not visit the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine [popularly known as GPU]. His lawyer Vitalii Serdiuk will. He says the subpoena served his client is unlawful, that his client doesn’t have to report to GPU to familiarize himself with the alleged criminal case, and that “Article 138 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine makes it clear that no one has to testify to the investigating officer on charges involving a long stay abroad, in the presence of a clear and direct threat to his life, considering that this threat is even more obvious in conjunction with the political process.”
Previously, GPU made public two subpoenas addressing ex-President Yanukovych who was hiding in Russia. On January 20, the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv ruled to authorize the Military Advocate General [“Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office” in Ukraine] to investigate and hear the Yanukovych case in absentia, on charges of high treason. Yurii Lutsenko, Prosecutor General of Ukraine, declared that the UN Secretariat had provided MAG with copies of ex-President Yanukovych’s statement requesting that Russia send troops to Ukraine.
Mr. Lutsenko went on to say that GPU is planning to complete pre-trial investigation in the Yanukovych case, on charges of high treason (February 2017). Ex-president Viktor Yanukovych appears to be involved in several criminal cases being investigated in Ukraine, including abuse of office from November 2013 until February 2014, complicity in the murder of street protesters on the Maidan, and hostile takeover of power in 2010. None of these charges have been officially submitted and dealt with in due course.
Mykola Khavroniuk, an expert with the Political and Legal Reform Center, told The Day that the Code of Criminal Procedure envisages situations in which a crime can be investigated and heard in court in absentia, but that the defendant reserves his rights, including the right to hire as many defense lawyers as he wishes. Viktor Yanukovych may visit or decline to visit Ukraine. This would be his decision. The main thing is that he has been subpoenaed. This situation is better than any during Soviet times when suspects would be spotted and grabbed, then given the third degree when anyone would be weeping, prepared to sign any statement.
Less than a month from now will mark the third anniversary of Viktor Yanukovych’s escape from Ukraine. Experts say there is enough evidence for court hearings and that professional [unbiased] approach remains the big question.
Mr. Khavroniuk says the fact that Viktor Yanukovych requested that Russia send troops to Ukraine can be documentally proved, including videos with his statements and talk shows on Russian television. All these recordings are legally valid evidence in terms of criminal prosecution.
Andrii Senchenko, Ukraine’s 5th-6th-7th-convocation MP, head of NGO Syla prava [Power of the Law], adds that there is sufficient evidence of Viktor Yanukovych’s high treason: “In addition to the evidence we have formally received from the United Nations, we have our evidence that GPU has to process in due course and prepare for the prosecution. There have been debates concerning the role Viktor Yanukovych played when he asked Russia to send troops to Ukraine [March 1, 2013. – Ed.]. Article 111 [of the Constitution of Ukraine], concerning high treason, provides for the head of state, any government official, and every citizen of Ukraine found guilty of an act that can be qualified as one of high treason.”
Some analysts previously pointed out that Viktor Yanukovych’s flight from Ukraine was a mission planned and carried out by Russia’s clandestine agencies during the Euromaidan events. In fact, Dmitry Shusharin contributed his feature on the subject to Den/The Day. That mission was meant to lead the events in Ukraine to boiling point at the turn of 2014, then extract Viktor Yanukovych, thus creating power vacuum, then hit Crimea and invade the east of Ukraine, he wrote. Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, then head of SBU, said there were Russia’s FSB men on the Euromaidan who actually gave orders to our law enforcement agencies.
Andrii Senchenko says that Russia did its best to use Viktor Yanukovych’s dubious status at the time. The Kremlin regarded him as President of Ukraine, even after the Verkhovna Rada had ruled that he was not. Russia once again tried to take advantage of the situation, but this only adds to Yanukovych’s guilt; he used his presidential authority which he did not legally possess, especially when signing a statement as President of Ukraine.
There is more to the Yanukovych case. He was used not only during the Euromaidan, but also during his tenure when Russians headed the Ministry of Defense and SBU of Ukraine, acting as a fifth column, destroying the country’s defenses. The state of Ukraine has been target number one in the Kremlin’s sights. Russia has been traditionally meddling with Ukraine’s internal affairs since 1994 when it “helped” elect Leonid Kuchma, former manager of Pivdenmash machine-building plant, as President of Ukraine. It was during his presidency that people started receiving the key posts in the defense ministry and law enforcement agencies, including the SBU secret police, using them in interclannish turf wars, adding to their fortunes. Leonid Kuchma appointed Viktor Yanukovych first as head of Donetsk Oblast State Administration, then as Prime Minister of Ukraine. After he failed to win the third presidential term, he banked on Viktor Yanukovych, but received the Orange Revolution in return.
As it was, neither the events of the fall of 2014, nor the bloody Euromaidan events could change the rules of the game, as evidenced by the judiciary freezing the Gongadze-Podolsky and other cases, including Euromaidan butchers and Viktor Yanukovych. What are the potholes in the Yanukovych case?
Andrii Senchenko points to the unrestrained media publicity campaign and officials’ publicity-oriented statements: “I believe that Mr. Lutsenko should do better than act as prosecution in court. I know that bringing Viktor Yanukovych to trial would be a field day for the Ukrainian media and politicians. Mr. Lutsenko is honestly stating incriminating facts. It is true that we have to pass judgment on our past, but it is also true that the current Prosecutor General, Yurii Lutsenko, was thrown behind bars on Viktor Yanukovych’s orders. What happened was unlawful, yet this makes Mr. Lutsenko’s stand in the matter biased, so he should’ve tasked some of his assistants, trained lawyers, with dealing with the case… He used words like ‘scum’ and accused Viktor Yanukovych of usurping power, robbing his country clean, destroying the armed forces and law enforcement agencies. Viktor Yanukovych’s defense may well use this during European court hearings as proof of bias. Mr. Lutsenko would have been right to say all this as an ordinary Ukrainian national, but he said this as Prosecutor General of Ukraine.”
“What really matters is whether the European Court of Human Rights will sustain the ruling [passed by a Ukrainian court],” says Mykola Khavroniuk, adding that “theoretically speaking, some of the provisos in the Code of Criminal Procedure are ad interim and here we have the loophole. Viktor Yanukovych’s defense may well use it and say that the law against him is [provisional and] selective. Therefore, it would be best to have these provisos finally included in the Code on a permanent basis, otherwise I can’t see this case heard in court with a verdict.”
In fact, the current Ukrainian administration can save its face only by publicly solving high-profile case like the one involving Viktor Yanukovych. Otherwise there will be no public confidence. No loud statements, no big promises will help, because people want deeds, not words from those “upstairs.” Those on the upper echelons of power ought to have long realized that this is their duty by definition. Everyone here knows that their path to the corridors of power and higher up was washed in blood. This country is being invaded by the Kremlin. This war has been waged for three years. Ukraine is supposed to be a democracy: power for the people. What do we have instead? Ranking bureaucrats adding to their offshore bank accounts by stealing national wealth. Rampant corruption that has lasted for decades. Bringing Viktor Yanukovych to justice would open many eyes, making many “upstairs” aware that justice exists in Ukraine. They would be scared and perhaps start doing their job properly. At one time, Viktor Yanukovych considered himself to be perfectly immune, a long-standing ruler.
A role model – not only in the year of Japan…
Pictured in 1867: Tokugawa Yoshinobu (1837-1913). He was the last shogun of Japan, ruling in 1866-68, and found the inner strength to renounce power in order to stop the spread of civil war in the country, avoid useless bloodshed and make way for modernization and Westernization of the Land of the Rising Sun / Photo from the website THENEWSLENS.COM
Pictured in 1867: Tokugawa Yoshinobu (1837-1913). He was the last shogun of Japan, ruling in 1866-68, and found the inner strength to renounce power in order to stop the spread of civil war in the country, avoid useless bloodshed and make way for modernization and Westernization of the Land of the Rising Sun
