Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, who was in power from 2010 to 2014 and has been a refugee in Russia since then, has been charged with his “cooperation” with Moscow to “discredit” his country, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said on Thursday.
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The authorities accuse him of “justifying” the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, in his interventions in the Russian media, called for its “denazification,” the language used by the Kremlin to justify its attack.
In “collaboration” with Russia and by repeating his theses, Mr. Azarov, who was born in Russia 76 years ago, tried to “discredit the Ukrainian state,” according to the prosecutor's office.
In particular, he would have denied the existence of the massacre in Boutcha, a town in the suburbs of Kiev, where a massacre of civilians attributed to Russian forces took place in 2022, which Moscow denies.
Ukrainian authorities did not directly name Mykola Azarov, but included a slightly blurry photo in which he can be identified.
The former prime minister fled to Russia in 2014 when several months of pro-European protests on Kiev's Maidan led to the downfall of President Viktor Yanukovych, one of his close friends.
In August 2015, while in exile in Russia, he founded a “Committee to Save Ukraine” with the aim of ousting the pro-Western authorities in Kiev from power.
An arrest warrant was issued against him after his resignation and he was accused of embezzling more than 7.6 million euros together with Viktor Yanukovych. He was also temporarily subjected to sanctions by the European Union.
His name appeared in the news again in January 2022, shortly before the start of the Russian invasion, when the United Kingdom accused Russia of wanting to install a “pro-Russian leader in Kiev” and “considering” “occupying” Ukraine. .
British diplomacy had listed Mykola Azarov among the former Ukrainian politicians with connections to the Russian security services.