"I do not want to participate in an allegedly adversarial [judicial] process with the result which was determined in advance. I have taken the decision to withdraw my lawyers from the process. There is no doubt on their qualification, but the lawyers are useless in the country of destroyed justice. This is not a trial, but a clear profanation," Yanukovych said in an interview with the Russian Channel One, adding that the Ukrainian Constitution was violated and the procedural rules were neglected during the trial.
Yanukovych also assumed that the judicial process would finish on August 24 with the decision to sentence the former president to the life imprisonment.
"The Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s Office made up the indictment in the shortest term even without introducing it me and without questioning me, which I repeatedly demanded. In fact, the investigation was fabricated," Yanukovych stressed.
On May 4, the Obolonskyi district court in Kiev launched preliminary hearing of the case on Yanukovych’s alleged treason and on the same day Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Kravchenko said that the public prosecution would seek life imprisonment for Yanukovych. In late June, the court started the merits review in the case and the next hearing is expected to be held on Thursday.
Yanukovych also said he will stay in politics and will do everything possible to ensure Minsk agreement implementation in short-term period.
"I have not left politics. I was, I am and I will be in politics, I bear the responsibility for the developments in Ukraine and my dream and my goal is to restore peace as soon as possible and to maintain Ukraine’s territorial integrity… Donbas should stay the part of Ukraine as an autonomous region, as it is fixed in the Minsk agreement," Yanukovych told reporters.
Yanukovych also stressed that Ukraine should remain a non-aligned country.
Yanukovich was toppled and forced to flee Ukraine as result of the protests which sparked in Kiev's landmark Independence Square, or Maidan Nezalezhnosti in 2013 and marked the start of the political crisis.
Kiev entered into armed confrontation with Donbas militia in 2014, after the self-proclaimed Luhansk (LPR) and Donetsk (DPR) People’s Republics refused to recognize the new Ukrainian government that came to power in what they perceive to be a coup. The sides to the conflict continue to exchange fire, despite the ceasefire deal, reached in Minsk in February 2015 and brokered by the so-called Normandy Quartet that comprises Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine.
