Legal trap or justification of crimes: Experts comment on trials of Ukrainian volunteer soldiers

The high-profile cases over brigandage and robbery involving fighters of Ukrainian volunteer battalions, particularly commander of Aidar Valentyn Lykholit, caused almost polar responses and estimates of human rights activists and experts.

The root cause of massive lawsuits against fighters of volunteer battalions is undeclared martial law – a  special legal regime which empowers the military to shoot terrorists and use property of citizens to carry out combat missions, if necessary. It is an opinion of Ukrainian MP from Batkivshchyna faction Ihor Lutsenko.

“Almost all fighters, who participated in the first phase of the war, when the semi-organized groups of volunteers were trying to fight in eastern Ukraine, can be charged with murder, kidnapping and looting. It is so because any resistance to terrorists, not authorized by the anti-terrorist operation center, in peacetime is de jure a criminal offense,” Lutsenko wrote on his Facebook page.

The volunteer soldiers actually fell in a legal trap, Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Center for Political and Legal Reforms Roman Kuybida said in an interview with DW.

“The provisions of effective Criminal Code do not regulate the activity of the volunteer battalions. It would be necessary to carefully study the legal situation and, possibly, to apply amnesty or exemption from criminal responsibility in cases unrelated to terrorizing the local population,” the expert said.

The authorities do not respond to inquiries about how many volunteer soldiers have been arrested, how many searches have been conducted, and whether there are some judgments in these cases.

“According to our data, only about 300 volunteer fighters are held in custody in Mariupol [Donetsk region]. Nobody knows how many of them all held in custody throughout the country,” Tetiana Blyzniuk, the coordinator of the committee for liberation of political prisoners, aide to MP, said.

At the same time, Oleksandra Matviychuk, the Chairwoman of the Center for Civil Liberties, which examines the human rights situation in Donbas, believes that the situation is much more complicated in fact. According to her, every single case of human rights violation requires careful consideration and study.

“People, who justify killing, rape and torture of the local population by military action, have probably forgotten what we fought on Maidan for, and what we are fighting in this war for,” the human rights activist said.

Matviychuk also believes that court must be guided exclusively by law when delivering verdicts in cases of the mentioned fighters.