Russian media reported that the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia had not received requests to extradite former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych. The Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine denies this and accuses the Russian Prosecutor General of lying.
On Monday, the head of the Ukrainian MIA Arsen Avakov published a post on his Facebook page, wherein he called the statements made by the Russian Prosecutor General “state-level lies.” The Minister thus described the statement made by the Russian Prosecutor General that they had not yet received requests to extradite former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych. Earlier, these words, said by Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, were cited by Russian federal channels and online media outlets, citing an interview to Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
“Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika stated that Ukraine was not sending requests to extradite former President Viktor Yanukovych. He also noted that, if Kyiv were to send in such a request, Moscow would act in accordance with international agreements and Russia’s own legislation. Earlier, Vitaly Yarema claimed Russia was ignoring extradition requests regarding former Ukrainian officials. However, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General never said whether there had been requests regarding Viktor Yanukovych himself. Therefore, the fallen President is still uncontainable, as nobody is trying to catch him in the first place,” reports pravda.ru.
“Russia, according to its obligations, which are in effect within the framework of CIS agreements in regard to wanted criminals, was supposed to enter the people wanted in Ukraine into its criminal system. Yanukovych and another 23 people,” Avakov wrote on Facebook.
Also, Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov accuses Russian law enforcement of purposefully not declaring the former President and a number of officials of his time wanted, and de-facto ignoring Ukraine’s requests: in particular, Russia ignores a document requesting the search for 24 people which had previously held high posts in Ukraine.
On January 12, several months after the request was made in March 2014, argumentation and explanations to Interpol, due to prepared inquiries made by the MIA, the office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine and the SBU, Interpol finally approved the according decision.
