The lawyer of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Oleksandr Goroshynskyi, has said his client appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2014 with a request to bring Russian troops to Ukraine since he had no other choice.
Speaking at Kyiv's Obolonsky district court, where the Viktor Yanukovych high treason case is heard, he recalled that an agreement to resolve the crisis had been signed between Yanukovych and the then-opposition leaders on February 21, 2014, and the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation had been in force at the time, an UNIAN correspondent reports.
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"The president appeals to two components - to the guarantor countries, since they guaranteed that everything would be fine and that both parties would fulfill the conditions. The president called, appealed, expressed concern, but these guarantors disappeared. The second component was to appeal to another country. And what was the president supposed to do? He had to knock. There was no other possibility," Goroshynskyi said.
In his debate speech, the lawyer claimed it was not the protesters who suffered during the Revolution of Dignity but law enforcers, and also suggested it was the United States of America who had financed the Maidan.
In particular, he said many law enforcement officers were hurt on November 30, 2013. The referred to the former commander of the internal troops, Stanislav Shuliak, who had fled Ukraine for Russia.
