KYIV. Oct 21 (Interfax) - Kyiv's Pechersky District Court ruled on Wednesday to issue an arrest warrant for former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov suspected of high treason committed by a group of persons acting in collusion, the State Bureau of Investigations said in a statement available on its website.
"The decision to order Azarov's pretrial detention in absentia as a restrictive measure would afford grounds for issuing requests for international legal aid regarding his extradition and would make it possible to initiate a special pretrial investigation," it said.
The Prosecutor General's Office said that, according to the investigation's findings, Azarov, acting jointly and in collusion with former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, in violation of the Ukrainian constitution and the law On International Treaties of Ukraine, signed a directive approving the Kharkiv Accords in Russia's favor, under which the presence of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine was extended by 25 years.
"These actions artificially created preconditions for an increase in the number of a foreign state's troops in Ukrainian territory, an invasion by the Russian Armed Forces, and the occupation of the Crimean Peninsula by them," it said.
The pretrial restrictive measure for the former prime minister has been ordered in a criminal procedure opened into a count of "high treason committed by a group of persons acting in collusion."
The State Bureau of Investigations said that, being fully aware of possible consequences of the signing of this agreement by Ukraine, Azarov wittingly made sure that its draft was authorized and cleared by the relevant officials and so "facilitated the promotion of Russia's interests at all stages of the draft agreement's clearance and implementation."
Criminal cases opened on a count of high treason have no statute of limitations, the bureau said. It also mentioned the fact that Yanukovych was notified back in January of being treated as a suspect in a treason case.
It emerged on March 24, 2021 that investigators from the State Bureau of Investigations informed Azarov of being suspected of high treason for clearing the Kharkiv Accords.
"It has been established that, while in the territory of the Russian Federation on April 20, 2010, the former prime minister of Ukraine consented to terms extending the presence of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Ukrainian territory for 25 years on the pretext of receiving a discount on the price of gas, terms which were imposed by the representative of a foreign state, namely Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. From April 21 to April 23, 2010, he [the ex-Ukrainian prime minister] ensured the clearance of the draft agreement between Ukraine and Russia on the presence of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine's territory and the Ukrainian law on its ratification by ministries and other central executive bodies and law enforcement agencies without these documents having been considered by the duly authorized agencies," the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said in a statement at the time.