Kherson City Court acquitted a resident of the village of Kizomys, Vlas Baranovskyi, who was accused of cooperating with Russian troops during the occupation of the right-bank part of the Kherson region.
The verdict states that the prosecution failed to prove that the man’s actions fall under Part 1 of Article 111-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Aid to an aggressor state”). But the story did not end there. Its course is worth attention. If one looks at the situation from the perspectives of the prosecution, the defense and Baranovskyi’s relatives, three completely different narratives emerge.
In the indictment, in the accounts of the victims and in the prosecution witnesses’ testimonies, the resident of Kizomys, Vlas Baranovskyi, is portrayed as a person who, during the Russian occupation of the village, collaborated with the invaders, passing them, as stated in the Kherson City Court decision, information “about pro-Ukrainian residents of Kizomys and owners of weapons.”
Baranovskyi himself, his relatives, his lawyers and the defense witnesses they brought to the trial said that the man did not collaborate with the occupiers, but became first the victim of an unfortunate accident and then of slander by people with whom relations had long been strained.
From the prosecution’s point of view
In the part of the verdict presenting the prosecution’s position, it is stated that Baranovskyi allegedly knowingly provided Russian soldiers with information about pro-Ukrainian-minded fellow villagers who owned hunting weapons, thereby contributing to the “illegal detention, torture and robbery of civilians.”
It goes on to say that on August 15, 2022 the defendant accompanied Russian servicemen to the house of a local resident, and the occupiers, threatening to kill him, demanded that the man hand over the weapon he kept. That man was a prosecution witness and said that Russian soldiers stormed into his house, searched the house and yard, and found nothing of interest.
Then the Russians, it is claimed in the accusatory part of the verdict, again accompanied by Vlas Baranovskyi, arrived at the yard of another Kizomys resident and broke into the house, demanding that the owner hand over the weapon he kept. The occupiers took the man’s hunting shotgun and, according to the man and his wife who testified in court, stole money and jewelry, causing damage totaling more than 155,000 hryvnias.
After the search Baranovskyi, according to the prosecution witnesses, allegedly shouted that he would “teach everyone the Russian world.”
Dmytro Shyshenko of the Oleshky District Prosecutor’s Office, who represented the prosecution at this trial, asked the court to sentence the defendant to 12 years in prison with confiscation of all property.
From the defense’s point of view
In the part of the verdict presenting the defense’s position, the story “acquires” details that make it look completely different.
According to the document, Vlas Baranovskyi owned a chainsaw and during the Russian occupation, when he could not work in his primary specialty (sailor), he did odd jobs cutting firewood for fellow villagers.
On August 15, 2022 two young fellow villagers asked to borrow the saw for temporary use. The man refused, and some time later, while he was not at home, he heard the sound of his chainsaw. He ran home and saw that the tool had been stolen and the woodshed broken into. Baranovskyi assumed that the young men who had asked to borrow it had taken it. He went to their parents.
By the shop he met Valentyn Kucherenko — a relative of one of those young men. Kucherenko, as stated in the verdict, was drunk. He brutally insulted Baranovskyi, then ran home, soon returned with a shotgun and started shooting in Baranovskyi’s direction. He missed. Baranovskyi, not wishing to be shot, ran away from the scene. He wanted to reach his friend’s house and wait there. But on the way he encountered a minibus with Russian soldiers.
The bus stopped, two soldiers got out and asked the man where he was running to. He replied that he was fleeing from a fellow villager who was shooting at him. The occupiers pulled the man into the minibus, laid him on the floor and demanded that he show where that fellow villager lived. When they arrived at Kucherenko’s, he said that he had indeed shot at Baranovskyi because he allegedly stole grapes from him.
After that the Russians, as the defense notes and the witnesses it produced confirm, ordered Baranovskyi to leave, and he did not take part in what happened next.
These events did not develop further until the de-occupation of Kizomys. When the village was liberated from the Russians, Valentyn Kucherenko informed Ukrainian forces that Baranovskyi allegedly collaborated with the Russians. Moreover, according to Yuliia Baranovska, Vlas’s sister, the Kucherenko family administered vigilante justice against her brother: they tied him to a “shame pole,” beat and insulted him. In his house, the sister says, an unauthorized search was carried out, leaving the interior of the home destroyed.
“Serhii, the son of the Kucherenko couple, – Yuliia says, – filmed the abuse of my brother on photo and video and posted it on social networks, as well as sent it to local residents.”
As stated in the verdict, the defense asked the court to declare the victims’ testimony unreliable, since there are grounds to believe that it was the victims who collaborated with the occupiers, not Baranovskyi.
“The victim’s wife, – says Ihor Bilov – one of the lawyers who represented Vlas Baranovskyi’s interests, – during the occupation worked on village improvement jobs when Kizomys was being prepared for a pseudo-referendum. She said she did not receive money from the occupiers for this, but it is impossible to verify the accuracy of her testimony. However, it is known for certain that the Kucherenko family received humanitarian aid from the Russians. The son of that couple traded in second-hand goods, traveled to Crimea to buy stock, and exchanged hryvnias for rubles.”
By contrast, village residents who appeared as witnesses in this case said that Vlas Baranovskyi did not receive anything from the occupiers.
The defense also pointed out that the defendant was initially charged with high treason in wartime, and only shortly before the court hearing the charge was reclassified to “Aid to an aggressor state.” Crimes under these articles are investigated by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) under Ukrainian law. Baranovskyi’s case was investigated by the police.
“…The assignment to conduct the pre-trial investigation to an authority other than the SBU investigators was unjustified, in the absence of an ineffective pre-trial investigation, as a result of which the defense believes that the proper legal procedure was not followed. The guilt of the accused was not proven by proper, sufficient and admissible evidence. The assignment of the investigation to the police is a significant violation of human rights”
states the part of the verdict presenting the defense’s position.
Regarding the other Kizomys resident to whose house Baranovskyi allegedly led Russian servicemen, much remains unclear in this story, because everything is based on the victim’s testimony. According to Yuliia Baranovska, that victim is a friend of Valentyn Kucherenko. And, according to lawyer Ihor Bilov, the victim’s wife cooperated with the Russians, which was proven by the investigation and the court, and the woman has been convicted and is serving a sentence.
The lawyers asked the court to acquit Baranovskyi because, in their view, the indictment was based solely on assumptions, and examinations were carried out only on the basis of the victims’ testimonies.
From the defendant’s relatives’ point of view
Yuliia Baranovska told a MOST correspondent that her brother’s relationship with Valentyn Kucherenko has been difficult for many years.
“Our family,” says Yuliia, “has a pond that Kucherenko has long wanted to buy. We are not selling the pond; Vlas raised ducks and geese there.”
According to Yuliia, it was because of the pond that Valentyn Kucherenko had a strong dislike for her brother.
She finds the search carried out by Russian soldiers at the Kucherenko family’s house very strange: “Valentyn said that the arrival of the Russians caused him great moral suffering. And yet the next day he and his wife went to Bilozerka, where the occupation military commandant’s office was located, to ask that their stolen items be returned.”
Yuliia Baranovska says that on the same day the Kucherenko couple went to Bilozerka, Russian servicemen returned to Kizomys, and this time – to her brother’s house.
“Vlas,” the woman recounts, “was not at home then. The Russians smashed the windows and doors. A neighbor saw it. She asked the occupiers: ‘What are you doing?’ They replied: ‘We were told that a robber lives here. We have to punish him.’ My question is — who pointed them to my brother?”
Yuliia considers the accusations of aiding the Russians and providing them information absurd: “What kind of treason and what kind of aiding the occupiers can we talk about if Vlas, as a village resident, knew well who had taken part in the ATO, who worked in the police, but he did not report any of these people or their family members to the Russians?!”
The same opinion is held by lawyer Ihor Bilov: “For some reason ‘treason’ manifested itself only in August 2022. That’s strange. And regarding the alleged informing the Russians about weapon owners, given that about half of the men in Kizomys are hunters, the occupiers could have found weapon owners without informants’ help.”
Yuliia Baranovska says that prosecutor Dmytro Shyshenko offered her brother to plead guilty to high treason and write a statement asking to be included on the exchange lists. Vlas Baranovskyi categorically refused.
“These proposals,” the woman says, “Shyshenko made when he visited the detention center where my brother was held. There were several such visits that the prosecutor did not coordinate with the lawyers.”
Speaking about the prosecutor’s interest in a successful outcome for him, Yuliia notes that Dmytro Shyshenko and Valentyn Kucherenko know each other: “Kucherenko ran a recreation base known in the village as ‘Prorishka.’ Police and prosecutor’s office employees liked to vacation there. Vlas once worked at that base: he ferried people across the river. He saw Shyshenko among the vacationers and saw him talking to Kucherenko.”
According to lawyer Ihor Bilov, a motion was made during the hearings to disqualify the prosecutor due to his alleged personal interest in the case outcome. But the court decided there was no convincing evidence that the victim and the prosecutor were acquainted or that the latter had a personal interest.
Yuliia Baranovska says that there are two character references in her brother’s case: one from the Bilozerka settlement military administration (the village of Kizomys is part of the Bilozerka settlement community) and one from the local elder’s office.
“The character reference from the military administration,” says Yuliia, “is negative, but it was written by people who did not know Vlas, and it contains inaccurate information, in particular that my brother abuses alcohol, whereas he has not consumed it at all for many years. The elder’s office reference, where people know Vlas, is positive. So the question is — whose words is the military administration’s reference based on?”
Now Vlas Baranovskyi, who spent three years in the pre-trial detention center, is undergoing medical treatment because his time in custody severely affected his health. He is also preparing for the appellate hearing together with his lawyers.
“The prosecution will definitely file an appeal, because in cases of collaboration with the Russians it does so even when the court’s verdict is slightly more lenient than the prosecutor requested. In our case the court acquitted the defendant and released him from the pre-trial detention center. Given the circumstances of the case, the decision could not have been otherwise,”
says lawyer Ihor Bilov.
Yuliia Baranovska says that her brother’s acquittal is only the first step in the fight for justice: “I will seek to bring to account all the people through whom our family endured so much suffering”.