The Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv sentenced Oleg Tsarev, a former Member of Parliament from the Party of Regions, to 12 years in prison in absentia.
This was reported by the newspaper "Graty".
Judge Pavlo Slobodyaniuk found the Tsarev guilty of publicly calling for separatism. The court also found the ex-MP guilty of publicly calling for a violent change of government and the overthrow of the constitutional order using the media.
The court also asked the president to deprive the royal order of merit of the 3rd degree.
According to Prosecutor Yuri Ushasty, the prosecutorʼs office asked for 12 years of imprisonment and deprivation of awards and the rank of a civil servant for Tsarev. The defendantʼs lawyer was not present at the hearing.
- Tsarev — Member of the Council of Four Convocations, last elected by the Party of Regions (2012 to 2014). In May 2014, he ran for president but withdrew his candidacy. In June of that year, the Verkhovna Rada stripped him of his parliamentary immunity and approved his arrest on suspicion of separatism.
- At the end of June 2014, Tsarev fled to the occupied Donbas, where he became speaker of the "parliament of the Union of Peopleʼs Republics" — a body of pro-Russian militants, which was to unite the "parliaments" of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk and Luhansk Peopleʼs Republics".
- In February, the Financial Times reported, citing US intelligence, that the Russians wanted to appoint Tsarev as the head of the puppet government in Ukraine. After the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Tsarev was seen in the temporarily occupied territories.
- On March 26, Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said the tsar had been informed of suspicion under two articles: encroachment on Ukraineʼs territorial integrity and collaborationism.