The State Bureau of Investigation continues to examine the legacy of Viktor Yanukovych. Today, it was reported that a current judge of the Economic Court of Kyiv has been suspected for a ruling made in favor of the Ministry of Defense of Russia. According to the statement on the GBR website, not only the judge has received suspicion in this case, but also the former top leadership of the state.
"It has been established that back in 2011, the aggressor country involved the then-President, Prime Minister of Ukraine, and the judge of the Economic Court of Kyiv, as well as leaders of various levels of the judicial system in subversive activities against Ukraine," the report states.
It is noted that the Russian leadership developed a plan under which the defense capability and armed forces of the aggressor would be financed from the State Budget of Ukraine under the guise of executing a decision by the Economic Court of Kyiv regarding the repayment of a non-existent debt.
"For this purpose, in 2011, the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation approached the leadership of Ukraine with a letter requesting assistance in repaying the debt of one of the business entities amounting to 405.5 million US dollars for natural gas supplied back in 1996-1997," the GBR reported.
It is emphasized that Ukraine had no relation to the debt of the commercial enterprise and could not be held accountable for it. However, the former leadership of the country began to emphasize in the media in 2011 that Ukraine should repay the specified amount to the Ministry of Defense of Russia.
In addition, a letter was prepared to the Security Service of Ukraine requesting to hold the head of the enterprise criminally liable for allegedly shifting this debt onto the state.
"In an attempt to artificially create grounds for direct financing of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation from the Ukrainian state budget, officials involved the leadership of the judicial system and the judge of the Economic Court of Kyiv to recover 405.5 million US dollars in favor of the Russian Federation through an unlawful court decision," the GBR noted.
Thus, according to the scheme developed by the accused, in August 2012, the Russian Ministry of Defense filed a lawsuit against the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in the Economic Court of Kyiv for the recovery of more than 3 billion UAH from the state budget.
"The Russians hoped that back in 2004, the then Prime Minister, who later became the President of Ukraine, promised to assist them in executing these court decisions. However, due to the absence of contractual legal relations between the plaintiff and the defendant, the judge should have refused to open proceedings on the case," the report states.
Moreover, the Russian Ministry of Defense did not attach any evidence to the lawsuit to confirm why Ukraine should pay this debt. Nevertheless, the judge of the Economic Court "issued an unlawful ruling and shifted the obligation of collecting and providing evidence in the case onto the defendant."
Based on this ruling, the Cabinet provided copies of correspondence between the heads of the governments of Ukraine and Russia from 1996. These were dated before the business entity concluded the agreement that led to the debt, hence these letters could not serve as evidence of either the existence of the debt or its transfer to Ukraine, the GBR noted. Moreover, the originals of these letters never existed, yet the court ignored this fact.
"Despite the expiration of the statute of limitations and the absence of state guarantees for the debts of the enterprise, as well as the lack of evidence of the very existence of the debt of the enterprise under contracts from 1996-1997 in 2012, the judge satisfied the lawsuit of the Russian Ministry of Defense and ordered the recovery of more than 3.1 billion UAH from any account of the State Budget of Ukraine in favor of the Russian Federation," the GBR emphasized.
In execution of this unlawful court decision in favor of Russia, part of the funds was recovered from Ukraine. "After the onset of Russian aggression against our country and the change of state leadership, another judge of the Economic Court annulled this unlawful decision in 2014, but it was never possible to return the unjustly seized funds in favor of Russia. According to the investigation, these funds were used to finance the so-called special military operation," the report states.
Thus, the actions of the suspects were classified under part 2 of article 28, part 1 of article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine as treason committed by a group of individuals by prior conspiracy. The maximum penalty provided is 15 years of imprisonment.
A petition was also signed to the High Council of Justice to suspend this judge from justice and to provide consent for detention.
Other high-profile cases of anti-Ukrainian activity
As reported by UNIAN, earlier today, on January 18, the SBU stated that evidence has been gathered confirming the anti-Ukrainian activity of former leading TV channels "Our" and NewsOne, which were owned by Viktor Medvedchuk and Yevheniy Murayev.
According to media reports, the case involves radio and television presenter Max Nazarov (real name - Nazar Ruslanovych Diordytsia).
According to the case materials, after the onset of the full-scale war, the accused created his channel on the YouTube video hosting platform, where he continued to disseminate Kremlin narratives.