The Kyiv Court of Appeals has left unchanged the preventive measure for the former commander of the Kharkiv operational-tactical group (OTG) Yuriy Halushkin. He will remain in custody until March 20.
This is reported by Suspilne from the courtroom.
The prosecutorʼs office demanded that Halushkin be kept in pre-trial detention, while the defense insisted on 24-hour house arrest. The court upheld the first-instance decision.
According to the investigation, during the defense of the Lypetsk community in the Kharkiv region, Halushkin misjudged the enemyʼs potential and the situation, and his actions contributed to the soldiers of the 125th separate brigade of the Ukrainian Defense Army voluntarily leaving the battlefield.
The former commander ignored intelligence, assessed the Russian offensive as "unlikely", and gave orders that did not reflect the real situation on the front. As a result, during the first day of the Russian offensive, almost 100 Ukrainian soldiers were wounded, killed, or went missing.
The State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) claims that due to miscalculations in the command and the unauthorized withdrawal of fighters and certain units of the 125th Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from their occupied positions, the troops lost the strategic initiative. As a result, the Russians were able to penetrate the brigadeʼs defense zone to a distance of up to 10 km, which allowed them to again shell Kharkiv with artillery.
Halushkin is one of three senior military officials suspected of neglecting the defense of the Kharkiv region.
Halushkin himself noted that the fierce fighting along the entire front line and the losses — both in people and territory — were not because “the soldiers lacked courage or the commanders lacked professionalism”, but because the Russians were oblivious to their own losses. He said that he was ready to go to war as an ordinary soldier.
What preceded
On January 20, law enforcement officers detained three military personnel suspected of negligence in organizing the defense of the Kharkiv region in 2024. We are talking about:
- former commander of the "Kharkiv" operational-tactical group, General Yuriy Halushkin;
- former commander of the 125th Territorial Defense Forces Brigade, General Artur Horbenko;
- former commander of the 415th separate rifle battalion of the 23rd separate mechanized brigade, Colonel Ilya Lapin.
The court remanded Halushkin and Lapin in custody on January 21, and Artur Horbenko on January 22. Already on January 22, bail of 5 million hryvnias was posted for Halushkin, but he was detained again on the same day.
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