MOSCOW, Jan 23 55 deputies will be judged in absentia in Ukraine The State Duma of the Russian Federation, including the speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, they are accused of encroaching on the territorial integrity of the country, the Security Service of Ukraine reported on Monday.
«The Security Service of Ukraine has collected irrefutable evidence of the guilt of 55 deputies of the State Duma of Russia,» the agency's website says. The deputies are accused of supporting the decision on February 15, 2022 to appeal to the President of Russia with a request to recognize the independence of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic, and then on February 22 they voted for the ratification of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance with the LNR and the DNR.
«Based on the collected evidence, the SBU investigators informed the defendants about suspicion in accordance with part 3 of Article 110 (encroachment on the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine,» the SBU said in a statement.
It is noted that the department sent indictments against deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, including Nikolai Valuev, Maria Butina, Vyacheslav Volodin, Mikhail Avdeev, Olga Alimova, Sergei Burlakov, Vladimir Burmatov, Oleg Garin , Arkady Ponomarev, Vladislav Reznik, Petr Ammosov, Anatoly Aksakov.
Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on 24 February. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass.