The Kremlin media report sensational news: a criminal case of treason is being opened against President Zelensky in Ukraine. RIA Novosti writes :
“The Ukrainian court ordered the State Bureau of Investigation to initiate a criminal case on the possible treason of Volodymyr Zelensky and members of his team, Verkhovna Rada deputy Geo Leros said on his Telegram channel.
“They ordered to open a criminal case under the article 'high treason' against Zelensky and Co! Let me remind you that the pocket SBI refused to investigate Zelensky’s treason when he appointed FSB agents to key positions in the SBU, but we were ordered by the court to enter information into the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations and start a pre-trial investigation, ”he wrote.
According to him, Zelensky, head of the presidential office Andriy Yermak, his deputy Roman Mashovets, ex-chairman of the SBU Ivan Bakanov and former deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Ruslan Demchenko should be interrogated as the main defendants in the appointment of FSB agents to the special service.
“I will not allow these traitors to escape responsibility for grave crimes against the Ukrainian people,” Leros added.”
Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Lenta.ru, Gazeta.ru, Kommersant, Izvestia and many others also write about this.
However, all the sensationalism of this message disappears if you pay attention to the relatively recent changes in the criminal procedure legislation of Ukraine. In November 2012, a new Code of Criminal Procedure entered into force. The concept of “initiation of a criminal case” is completely absent in it.
The court ordered the State Bureau of Investigation to start a pre-trial investigation on the application of MP Leros.
Article 214 of the Code of Criminal Procedure states :
“The investigator, interrogating officer, prosecutor immediately, but no later than 24 hours after filing an application, reporting a criminal offense or after independently identifying from any source circumstances that may indicate the commission of a criminal offense, is obliged to enter the relevant information into the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations to start investigation and, 24 hours after entering such information, provide the applicant with an extract from the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations.
In other words, after the receipt of any statement about the commission of a crime, the State Bureau of Investigation has no right not to initiate a pre-trial investigation. Article 2019 establishes the period of pre-trial investigation for grave and especially grave crimes at 18 months. During this period, the investigating body is obliged to either close the proceedings or send an indictment to the court.
Thus, the whole news lies in the fact that Zelensky's political opponent filed an application for committing treason, and the court found no reason to ignore this application and demanded that it be considered in a general manner.
Geo Leros was elected to the Verkhovna Rada as a member of the Servant of the People party, but soon began to oppose his colleagues in the faction and even got into a fight in the meeting room with one of them. In September 2020, he accused Zelensky of violating election promises, and the head of the presidential office, Andriy Yermak, of working for the Russian special services. After that, he was expelled from the faction, and in February 2023, Leros was suspended from participation in meetings for offensive remarks about Yermak.