Transfer of military secrets, Luch project and assistance to occupation: prosecutors complete investigation into Medvedchuk and Kozak treason case

The treason case will soon be sent to court.

The investigation into the high-profile case against Opposition Platform — For Life MPs Viktor Medvedchuk and Taras Kozak on suspicion of treason and plundering national assets has been completed. This was reported by Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova.

From today, the case materials have been made available to the defense. After they review the full body of evidence gathered by prosecutors and investigators, the case will go to court.

The case materials have also been available to Medvedchuk, who is under house arrest, since today. Proceedings against Kozak have been separated into a separate case due to his being wanted, although the main investigative actions against him have also been completed.

The investigation established that the two MPs, together with officials of the authorities of the aggressor country — the Russian Federation — and other persons, attempted to plunder national assets — illegal extraction of oil and gas on the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, which, in accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine, is the property of the Ukrainian people.

Investigators have evidence that the suspects handed over to the occupation authorities the material and documentary base for developing the Glubokoye field. 

It is located on the Crimean shelf of the Black Sea within Ukraine's exclusive (maritime) economic zone. Without the help of these MPs, the Russian Federation would have needed years and huge resources to develop the site, with promising reserves worth more than UAH 38 billion.

With the assistance of one of the MPs, a so-called 'successor' to an enterprise registered in Ukraine was being created on the temporarily occupied territory, so that it could then obtain illegal 'permits' from the aggressor state based on the existing Ukrainian permits and ready technical documents. 

Iryna Venediktova
Prosecutor General of Ukraine

This is a gross violation of international and our national legislation, since the temporarily occupied territory is an integral part of Ukraine, over which only the jurisdiction of its state authorities applies.

In addition, according to investigators, Kozak and Medvedchuk, acting on instructions from representatives of Russian Federation state authorities, collected information on the deployment locations of Ukrainian military units and their combat training, and assisted in drawing Ukrainian citizens into activities to the detriment of Ukraine in order to destabilize the socio-political situation in the state.

In essence, they provided a foreign country with assistance in carrying out subversive activities against Ukraine. This is nothing other than treason — an act deliberately committed by a citizen of Ukraine to the detriment of Ukraine's sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability, defense capability, and state, economic or information security, the Prosecutor General said.

In this case, it concerns the transfer of confidential information on one of the military units of the Ukrainian army, as well as active participation in the development of the so-called 'Luch Project.' According to experts, the project is aimed at systematically promoting and lobbying for the political, geoeconomic and other interests of the Russian Federation, and for changes in Ukraine's domestic and foreign policy that benefit it. 

Among the program's tools, which one of the suspects personally edited, were the formation of a network of influence agents and a layer of the population loyal to the RF. 'Luch' was meant to help shape public opinion in Ukraine needed by the RF, bring about management, economic and political decisions beneficial to the RF, and undermine the independence of state authority within the country and its independence in international relations.

According to reports, prosecutors and investigators carried out a huge volume of investigative and procedural actions, expert examinations and interrogations, and analyzed dozens of hours of audio recordings. Some of the evidence that formed the basis of the charges against two Ukrainian people's deputies was shown to the wider public.

On May 12, Medvedchuk was served with a motion for detention. On May 13, the court ordered the MP a preventive measure of round-the-clock house arrest until July 9, and on May 14 an electronic tag was put on him. Kozak's whereabouts remain unknown to this day.