Court finds former MP a traitor to Ukraine for supporting occupation of Kherson region

The court found the late former MP Zhuravko guilty of treason. He actively distributed pro-Russian materials and justified the occupation of Kherson region.

This was reported by the Center for Public Investigations.

The court found that in early 2022 and during the full-scale invasion of Russia, Zhuravko disseminated materials on social media that harmed the security of the state, called for an aggressive war, and discredited the Ukrainian government. In particular, he published posts demanding capitulation to Russia, denying the crimes of the Russian army, and supporting the occupation of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. His YouTube channel also featured videos justifying Russia's armed aggression and calling for war.

The court took into account more than 300 publications on VKontakte, 1,835 posts on Telegram and videos on YouTube. The punishment for the aggregate of crimes is 15 years in prison with confiscation of property.

According to the Chesno movement, Oleksiy Zhuravko, a former MP from the Party of Regions, was suspected of attempting to violently change the constitutional order and seize state power and was wanted by the SBU. On September 25, 2022, a rocket attack in Kherson killed two people, including the former MP. A few days earlier, he released a video in which he "voted" in a "referendum" in Kherson, calling on Russia to "bring the special operation to an end and reach the western borders of Ukraine" and calling the occupation of Kherson region "liberation from Ukrainian nationalists."

At the end of April 2022, he returned to Kherson, but the occupation authorities did not provide him with a position, while his uncle was appointed as the gauleiter of the Oleshky community. During the investigation in 2018, it became known that in 2014-2015 Zhuravko financed the terrorists of the so-called L/DPR. In 2015, he fled to Russia, where he became a propaganda tool, in particular, in February of the same year, he participated in a rally in Moscow against the Maidan, where former MP Oleg Tsarev was also noticed.

He was born on April 21, 1974, in Zhovti Vody, Dnipro region, and had a university degree. He was elected to the Verkhovna Rada in 2006, 2007 and 2012 from the Party of Regions, and in 2002 he ran for the For Yedyna bloc, but did not make it. In 2011, he attacked a journalist from Ukrayinska Pravda, trying to take away his camera while he was preparing a story about the illegal use of special signals by MPs on their cars.

Also in January, the court found Serhiy Belik, the former head of the Lazurne village community in Kherson region, guilty of lack of cooperation and high treason. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment with confiscation of all his property.

Анна Бальчінос