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The lawyers of deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych (left) and prosecutors (right) listen to a panel of three judges (C) as they deliver the verdict on 24 January 2019 in Kiev. GENYA SAVILOV / AFP

A Kiev court on Thursday (January 24th) handed down its verdict in the trial in absentia of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. He is sentenced for high treason to 13 years in prison. He has been living in exile in Russia since his escape in 2014, following the victory of the Maidan Revolution. He will not serve his sentence. But the verdict is no less symbolic.

With our correspondent in Kiev , Sébastien Gobert

The annexed Crimean peninsula, the warring eastern regions, more than 13,000 deaths according to the UN, and he is sentenced to 13 years in prison for high treason. Formerly authoritarian President Viktor Yanukovych is convicted of asking Vladimir Putin to intervene militarily in Ukraine. Still, he will probably not spend any day behind bars.

This trial in absentia is criticized by many Ukrainians as a farce. Viktor Yanukovich himself snubbed the court's last convocation by videoconference, and denounced a " political persecution ".

The Attorney General, Yuriy Lutsenko, made his case a marker of his determination to " extinguish the crimes of the old regime ". Many in Ukraine, however, suspect him of a false justice: condemning the former tyrant fallen would be easy, while at the same time, many other former corrupt dignitaries enjoy scandalous impunity.

Still, the verdict is welcomed as a welcome welcome, a small compensation that can heal some wounds of the past five years.