MOSCOW. March 2 (Interfax) - Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych insists that he did not ask the Russian leadership to send armed forces to Ukraine in the early 2014, but only proposed deploying police peacekeepers.
"Basing myself on the treaty on mutual assistance, I proposed considering sending a police peacekeeping mission," Yanukovych told journalists in Moscow on Friday.
Yanukovych's lawyer, Vitaly Serdyuk, said the defense planned to make public Yanukovych's appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2014.
"We might publish the text of the appeal to Putin that Viktor Fedorovych [Yanukovych] made in March 2014, and we will pass it on to the court as well. We hope the charges will be dropped then," Serdyuk said.