Vyshinsky, who refused the exchange, had his arrest extended until September 19
A court in Kyiv today extended the arrest of the editor-in-chief of the RIA Novosti Ukraine agency, Kirill Vyshinsky, for another 60 days, until September 19 of this year, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
This decision was announced by the presiding judge of the Podolsk District Court.
“The panel of judges finds no grounds for satisfying the defense’s request to replace the chosen preventive measure,” the judge read out the decision, adding that it can be appealed within seven days from the date of announcement.
The next meeting is scheduled for 15:00 on September 16.
Prior to this, Vyshinsky’s defense petitioned for his release from custody. The lawyers considered the extension of the preventive measure groundless and asked the court to soften it.
“I ask the court to refuse to extend the preventive measure and change the preventive measure in the form of detention under personal recognizance, including wearing an electronic bracelet,” said lawyer Andrei Domansky.
The prosecution petitioned the court “to extend Vyshinsky’s arrest for two months.” Motivating the appeal, the prosecutor noted that Vyshinsky “may be hiding from the investigative authorities.”
Let us note that Vyshinsky himself stated at the trial that he did not agree to any exchange and insisted on a fair hearing of his case in a Ukrainian court and his own acquittal.
“I’m not going to run away anywhere, I want justice. I heard that they want to trade me, but I’m not a thing to be traded,” he told reporters.
He also said that if released from custody, he would continue his journalistic activities. “Naturally, I want to continue working in the press, which I have been doing for quite a long time,” he said.
The editor-in-chief of the RIA Novosti Ukraine agency, Kirill Vyshinsky, was detained in May 2018 in Kyiv. He was charged with treason and illegal weapons trafficking. The Kherson City Court arrested him for two months; later this measure of restraint was extended many times. Vyshinsky denies all charges and faces up to 15 years in prison.
The court hearing in the Vyshinsky case, at which it was predicted that his preventive measure would be changed and his release, was supposed to take place several days earlier, but was disrupted due to the judge’s failure to appear and was postponed to July 19.
It is interesting that Ukrainian top officials and representatives of the special services never hid the fact that Vyshinsky was arrested without any grounds or evidence of his guilt - solely for the subsequent exchange for one of the Ukrainians arrested in the Russian Federation. In particular, the names of Oleg Sentsov were mentioned, and then the names of Ukrainian sailors. In fact, today Vyshinsky has become a hostage of rather murky political games around the procedure and timing of such an exchange, in conditions when part of the Ukrainian government associated with ex-President Petro Poroshenko is openly sabotaging any attempts to organize a direct dialogue with the Russian Federation.
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