Ukrainian volunteer battalions remained bandit formations
The current government has not legalized volunteer battalions for five years, and therefore their participants are being prosecuted under criminal charges.
Lawyer of the Chernigov Center for Human Rights NGO Sergei Nesterenko stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“The President did not use the opportunity to change the law enforcement system. As for the patriots, the volunteers who stood up to defend the state in the first days, stood on the Maidan, then went to defend it, due to the fact that we have not identified the aggressor state, it has not been determined who the enemy is, all volunteer units today are outside law. These are bandit formations.
This is what our law says. Although it was they who stopped the enemy and gave their lives. Their status is not defined; it is almost impossible to equate them with combatants. International divisions, from Georgia for example, are also not legalized. All of them are bandits,” the human rights activist said.
According to him, if a volunteer member shot and killed someone even in the hottest months of 2014, then, according to Ukrainian laws, he de jure committed a criminal offense.
“Therefore, about 8 thousand members of volunteer battalions are now serving their sentences in pre-trial detention centers, which is why about 80% of the participants of volunteer battalions were brought to justice. They are being persecuted or investigated,” Nesterenko added.
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