In 2020, lawyer Svitlana Novytska signed an agreement to defend Tetyana Kuzmich — accused of treason in Kherson. According to the SBU, under her leadership an FSB agent network operated in the Kherson region.
This is stated in an investigation by the Schemes project.
Journalists refer to documents of the so-called «Pravfond» that reached them from European colleagues.
In a letter to this fund on letterhead saying «lawyer Svitlana Novytska», the fees for defending the traitor are revealed.
The leak contains Novytska’s budget estimate for defending the treason-accused Kuzmich. The cost of legal services is 140 thousand US dollars, at five thousand dollars per month from 2020 to 2022.
Journalists say that these funds were not paid by the treason-accused herself. The money was supposed to come from a fund at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia.
In October, a court in Lviv extended lawyer Svitlana Novytska’s detention for two months. She is suspected of treason. Investigators rely on analysis of her public rhetoric and covert investigative measures. She rejects all the charges.
Including the journalists’ claim about 140 thousand for Kuzmich’s defense.
“I’m hearing this from you for the first time,” – Novytska replied to a Radio Liberty journalist.
But among the documents there is an agreement between Novytska and the accused Kuzmich. It mentions that the lawyer was invited by Lidiya Dyachenko – first secretary of the Russian embassy in Ukraine, a representative of «Россотрудничества».
The leak also contains the lawyer’s report, which details the pages studied in the case, appeals to the OSCE, the UN and to Russian ministries. A separate item is the search for money for bail for the suspect Kuzmich. Novytska appealed about this to a Russian agency and the Russian humanitarian mission. The document bears the lawyer’s signature and seal. She denies everything.
“There was never any 140 thousand dollars there. They checked all my accounts and did not find that I received even a single kopeck anywhere. This is a fake”, – Novytska said, commenting on the document from the leak
The trial of the treason-accused Tetyana Kuzmich, whom lawyer Novytska is defending, is still ongoing in Ukraine. But without Kuzmich.
Now, in Russian media she is presented as an official of the Russian authorities in the occupied part of Kherson region – «deputy head of the Kherson region for work with evacuated residents of the Kherson region».
Another lawyer worked on the case of the treason-accused Tetyana Kuzmich – Dmytro Kalonov.
The leaks contain a mention – he was also invited to defend Kuzmich by a representative of the Russian embassy in Ukraine. An agreement with Kalonov was mentioned in one of Novytska’s letters to the fund. Lawyer Kalonov denies everything.
“Nothing was ever paid to me in this regard. Why do this at all… There is attorney-client privilege and so on”, – he said.
When asked whether he received money from the Russian «Fund for the Protection of the Rights of Compatriots», Kalonov Jr. replied: “No, of course not! Why on earth would I receive anything from them?”
As early as 2022 MOST reported that after the full-scale invasion lawyer Dmytro Kalonov made a video appeal to his father. He was spotted in the administrative building after the occupation of Kherson during the creation of the so-called «Kherson Region Rescue Committee».
In the same video, lawyer Dmytro Kalonov called the person he defended in court – Tetyana Kuzmich – «an FSB agent». Now he regrets taking on this case.
“I certainly, of course, very, very much regret it. It was my mistake, as they say, in my professional career”, – says Kalonov.