The Kyiv Court of Appeal has overturned the conviction of Vadim Moshkin, a former security guard at a polyclinic in Kyivʼs Desnyansky district. He was sentenced to four years in prison last year.
Court Reporter writes about the decision, citing the courtʼs ruling. The court made the decision on May 28.
Russian troops attacked Kyiv with missiles on the night of June 1, 2023. In the Desnyansky district of the capital, debris fell on a polyclinic and an adjacent multi-story building — 3 people were killed, including a 9-year-old girl, and about twenty more were injured. During the air raid siren, people were unable to get to the shelter in the polyclinic, as it was closed.
For this, suspicions were announced against the first deputy of the Desnyansky district state administration Iryna Alekseenko, the director of the medical institution Oleh Shuhalevych, his deputy Vasyl Desyk, as well as the security guard Vadym Moshkin.
Later, suspicion was also handed over to the head of the Kyiv City State Administrationʼs security department Roman Tkachuk— he was placed under 24-hour house arrest, and in September he was removed from office. However, on October 12, 2023, the court allowed Tkachuk to return to his post.
In July 2024, the Desnyansky District Court of Kyiv found guard Vadym Moshkin guilty of endangering life, resulting in the death of 3 people. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison.
Appeal
Moshkin appealed the verdict. In the appeals court, he said that he did not hear anyone knocking on the door, and when he did, he went to open the door, but there was an explosion and the front glass door he was trying to open fell on him, causing him to be injured as well.
The clinic was not equipped with a loudspeaker, so he had to monitor the situation on his own phone.
Order No. 301, which allegedly obliged the guards to open the doors to the shelter, according to Moshkin, actually appeared after the tragedy, and he had not seen it before and had not signed to acknowledge it.
The main entrance to the clinic was also the entrance to the storage room. Moshkin and the other guards were financially responsible, so the door was locked at night.
The Court of Appeal questioned two witnesses
A woman who also works as a guard at the same institution gave evidence. Presumably, she is Moshkinʼs wife. She testified that there was an order to keep the front door closed at night, but she did not read Order No. 301, and no air raid siren was heard in the hospital premises.
Therefore, the witness believes that the guard could not have heard the air raid warning signal in time. And the entrance to the shelter from the outside was constantly closed.
Another witness was the deputy director of the polyclinic for technical issues. He testified that the hospital basement was not officially listed as a shelter and that he did not know about Order No. 301, but he instructed the guards on how to use the shelter. He also explained that at the time of the incident there was no order to keep the doors open at night.
The witness said that due to the architectural features of the hospital, it was not possible to hear the air raid siren from the street in the entire building, and the building itself was not equipped with an alarm system.
Court decision
The Court of Appeal believes that both during the pre-trial investigation and in the court of first instance, the defense version regarding the real possibility of responding to the air raid alert in time and, accordingly, the presence of Moshkinʼs intent was not checked.
An investigative experiment with the participation of the accused was not conducted. According to the Court of Appeal, the court of first instance did not examine the evidence and did not find out when order No. 301 was actually issued.
According to the judges of the appeal court, the verdict was unfounded. The first instance court allegedly failed to analyze each piece of evidence both separately and in conjunction with other evidence; failed to explain why it rejected the accusedʼs version; and failed to state the reasons for not taking into account the defenseʼs arguments.
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