High Council of Justice upholds dismissal of prosecutor in Odesa region for ethics violation

The High Council of Justice upheld the July 9 decision of the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors to impose a disciplinary sanction on Yevhen Kyrylin, prosecutor of the Bilyayiv District Prosecutor's Office in Odesa Oblast.

This was reported by the HCJ press service.

On July 9, 2025, the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors decided to dismiss the prosecutor for a gross violation of prosecutorial ethics.

In the summer of 2020, a 13-year-old girl and her mother reported to the Bilyayivka Police Department that she had been raped by two unidentified men. The girl was riding with the men in a car and drinking alcohol. Later, near the river in the back seat of the car, the girl voluntarily had sexual intercourse with one of the men. The other man, she claims, forced her to have sexual intercourse. The men confirmed in written explanations that they had sexual intercourse with the minor, but denied that it was forced. On August 11, 2020, prosecutor Yevhen Kyrylin changed the qualification of the criminal offense from rape by a group of people to sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16. The original qualification provided for 7 to 12 years in prison, and the amended qualification provided for restriction or imprisonment for up to 5 years.

Subsequently, in January 2022, the composition of the group of prosecutors and the decision to close the case were canceled, but in September of the same year, Kirilin again became the head of the group and disagreed with the investigator's suspicions, noting that the men's actions should have been classified as rape. In this way, Kirilin contradicted his own decision to reclassify the criminal offense.

Over the past five years, no investigations involving potential suspects have been conducted. In 2025, Kirilin's decision to mitigate the qualification of the crime was canceled.

Yevhen Kyrylin, for his part, did not see any violations, but the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors decided that he had removed himself from the performance of his duties as a prosecutor, imitated official activities, and misled the leadership of the district and regional prosecutor's offices about the proper procedural guidance in criminal proceedings. As a result, two possible suspects in the crime against the minor managed to avoid criminal liability.

Кирило Бойко