Translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard
20:10:23
28/02/2017
vz.ru
The Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Aleksandr Turchynov, in an interview to the Ukrainian “Censor.net” website, actually recognized the illegality of that seizure of power, having declared that in 2014 he tried to catch the President of the country Viktor Yanukovych in order to force him to resign.
“Live on air Yanukovych complained that I wanted to destroy him, having seized his helicopter. The truth was that I really tried to catch and bring him to Kiev,” he said in the interview to the Ukrainian “Censor.net” website, adding that he succeeded to force the helicopter with Yanukovych inside to land in Donetsk, but couldn’t detain the head of state, reports “dnr-news”.
According to Turchynov, it was important to “force” Yanukovych to announce his resignation, otherwise he would remain the President, and could “settle in any eastern region of the country and proclaim the transfer of his administration there”.
Turchynov also gave an excerpt from the Constitution, in which it is said that the President will lose their powers in the event of death, and also can “fall ill, go crazy, he can be recognized as incapacitated, and can resign himself”.
“But there is no concept of ‘fleeing president’ in the Constitution,” stated Turchynov. And it is by this that he explained his actions for the capture and transfer of Yanukovych to Kiev in order “to convince him to write a statement about his voluntary resignation, and then to send him to the Lukyanovka pre-trial detention center”.
In this way, Turchynov recognized the events in Ukraine as a state coup – Yanukovych really didn’t forfeit his powers. On February 22nd the Rada established that Yanukovych “unconstitutionally withdrew” himself from power. On February 23rd, it is Turchynov personally via his own decree who appointed himself as the acting President of Ukraine – at that time Yanukovych’s powers hadn’t been stopped ahead of schedule in a legal way.
As a reminder, at the end of December the Dorogomilovsky court of Moscow recognized the events of 2014 in Ukraine as a coup d’etat.
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