Ukraine accuses two Russian MPs of financing terrorism
The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine (GPU) has drafted reports suspecting two members of Russia’s State Duma of financing terrorism, as announced on the GPU website.
“It has been established that two members of Russia’s State Duma, while located in Moscow, between March and June 2014, for the purpose of providing material support to the LPR and DPR terrorist organizations as part of the criminal group organized by [LDPR party leader Vladimir] Zhirinovsky, which has also been joined by individual members of Russia’s State Duma and members of the Liberal-Democratic Party, including the leaders and representatives of the party’s regional branches, acting publicly, with the involvement of DPR representatives and with media presence, urged Russian citizens to raise funds for providing material support to the LPR and DPR, and ensured that corresponding adverts were placed on the party’s websites, and opened points for the collection of such funds in Russian territory,” the statement reads.
The report also notes that the mentioned MPs made an agreement to provide material support to the DPR, and also ensured that members of this terrorist organization were given premises in Moscow “for representation activity”.
Under Zhirinovsky’s leadership, and acting at the request of the Somali battalion commander Mikhail Tolstykh (callsign “Givi”), between 2014 and 2017 the mentioned MPs supplied members of these criminal groups with six Russian-produced vehicles with increased performance capabilities, several of which were used in terrorist acts against the soldiers and law enforcement divisions of Ukraine, especially at the Donetsk airport.
“The reports on the suspicion of terrorism financing by the mentioned members of Russia’s State Duma have been drafted according to the listed facts of criminal activity by the mentioned organized group on 27 June 2018. The members of Russia’s State Duma charged with criminal violations of the law may be condemned in Ukraine in absentia to 10 to 20 years of prison,” the report states.
The GPU did not mention any specific names, but a source told Interfax-Ukraine that the MPs in question were Mikhail Legtyarev and Alexey Dinenko from the LDPR party.