A Kiev court found Ukrainian ex-president Viktor Yanukovich guilty of high treason. It was proved that he had helped Russia to conduct a war of aggression, the judge ruled, according to Ukrainian media.
Yanukovych is said to have favored, inter alia, after his removal, the annexation of the Crimean peninsula by Russia. The sentence was initially unknown.
In February 2010, Yanukovych won the presidential election against the pro-Western head of government Yulia Tymoshenko. He was overthrown in pro-Western protests in February 2014 and fled to Russia.
From the Russian exile Yanukovich then also participated by videoconference in the process. This has been conducted since May 2017 in the absence of the defendant. The defense regards the procedure as politically motivated. More than 50 senior witnesses, including current head of state Petro Poroshenko and ex-prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, were questioned.
The verdict is not yet legally binding. It is the first trial of a former head of state in Ukraine.