Andrii Antonenko / REUTERS

Kyiv's Pechersky district court has decided to remand in custody Andrii Antonenko and Yulia Kuzmenko, who are suspects in the case of journalist Pavel Sheremet's assassination in Kyiv in 2016.

Antonenko, a Donbas war veteran and member of the Riffmaster band, and Kuzmenko, a civil volunteer and pediatric surgeon, will be held in detention until February 8, 2020, according to the online portal nv.ua.

"The motion shall be satisfied. A preventive measure against Andriy Antonenko shall be used in the form of detention until February 08, 2020," the judge said.

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A similar ruling was issued against Kuzmenko.

Yulia Kuzmenko / REUTERS

The rulings are appealable.

Earlier Member of Parliament from the European Solidarity Party Yana Zinkevych and musician Oleksandr Polozhinsky said they were ready to take Antonenko on personal recognizance.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Sheremet was assassinated in a car blast in the center of Kyiv on the morning of July 20, 2016.

On December 12, 2019, police said they suspected five persons of complicity in the crime: former Donbas war volunteer and musician Andrii Antonenko, army volunteer and pediatric surgeon Yulia Kuzmenko (nom de guerre "Lysa," or "Fox"), nurse with a paratrooper unit Yana Duhar, and a family couple of army volunteers Inna Hryshchenko ("Puma") and Vladyslav Hryshchenko ("Bucha").

Read alsoVolunteer, pediatric surgeon suspected of Sheremet's assassination says she didn't know the victim

Antonenko, Kuzmenko and Duhar were notified of suspicion on December 12, 2019. The Hryshchenkos were detained in another case, but are figures in the Sheremet case.

Duhar was placed under house arrest 24/7 until February 8, 2020.

Investigators insist that Antonenko is the organizer of the attack, while Kuzmenko was a perpetrator of the crime who planted explosives under the journalist's car. They say that the assassination was designed to destabilize the situation in Ukraine.