Vladyslav Manher, who was convicted of organizing the murder of Handziuk, said that he was being called up for duty. MDU deny it

On Monday, April 1, during the review of the appeal in the case of the murder of Kateryna Handzyuk, it became known that the former chairman of the Kherson Regional Council Vladyslav Manher, who was found guilty of ordering the attack on the activist, was allegedly summoned to duty by the commander of military unit A7382.

This was reported by the initiative "Who murdered-for-hire Katya Handzyuk" on Facebook.

In addition, Munher stated in court that he will soon submit to the court a motion from the Ministry of Defense on the need to call him up.

"We still donʼt know why the commander of the Territorial Defense brigade needs a person who ordered the murder of Katya Handziuk and besides, he has a lot of chronic diseases. Today, the judge read out a long list of Munherʼs illnesses, compiled by the lawyers. Judging by this list, the potential soldier Munher is unlikely to pass the military medical commission," the initiative noted.

The press service of the 126th separate brigade of the Territorial Defense of Odesa, where Munher was supposed to be drafted, denied this information.

"The information disseminated on April 1, 2024 on a number of information resources regarding the involvement of the commander of military unit A7382 in providing the accused of ordering the attack on Kateryna Handziuk to the ex-head of the Kherson Regional Council Vladyslav Manher a letter to serve in military unit A7382 is not true," it says. in the message.

The brigade emphasized that Munher "was not, will not be and in no case could be" in the brigade.

According to the decision of the Ukrainian court, Munher is serving a fair sentence as the mastermind of a high-profile murder, his place is in prison. Our place is on the battlefield, where the 126th brigade will continue to fight for justice for the Ukrainian people, liberating new territories, not criminals from punishment," the brigade emphasized.

The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (MDU), in the comments under the post of the initiative "Who murdered-for-hire Katya Handzyuk", reported that it is not preparing any petition to enlist Manher in the Armed Forces.

"If a relevant initiative appears at the level of a military unit, the process will be immediately stopped, and an official investigation will be conducted against the initiators," the agency said.

The case of Kateryna Handzyuk

Public activist Kateryna Handzyuk died in a Kyiv hospital on November 4, 2018, three months before that she was doused with sulfuric acid in Kherson. The perpetrators of the crime: former soldiers of the Ukrainian Volunteer Army Viktor Horbunov, Vyacheslav Vyshnevskyi, Volodymyr Vasyanovych, Mykyta Hrabchuk and the organizer of the attack Serhiy Torbin. They were pleaded guilty, entered into a deal with the investigation and received from 3 to 6.5 years of imprisonment.

On June 25, 2020, the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office completed the investigation into the murder of Handzyuk.

In October 2020, Ihor Pavlovskyi, who is considered an intermediary between those who ordered and executed the murder, was found guilty of concealing the facts regarding the attack on Handzyuk and sentenced to a suspended sentence.

In June 2023, the court found Vladyslav Manher guilty of ordering the attack, and his assistant Oleksiy Levin — of the organization, for which they were each sentenced to 10 years in prison.