"Prosecutors disappeared from the court": Shufrych’s defence claims systematic disruption of hearings after ECHR intervention

People’s Deputy Nestor Shufrych has been in a pre-trial detention center for over two years. He is accused of treason. However, the examination of evidence in court has not yet begun.

This was reported by "Court Reporter".

A shift regarding the preventive measure occurred only at the beginning of this year. On January 6, 2026, the Kyiv Court of Appeal set an alternative — a bail of 33 million 280 thousand hryvnias.

The decision was influenced by the fact that on December 4, 2025, the European Court of Human Rights accepted Shufrych’s complaint about the excessive duration of his detention. The ECHR gave Ukraine until April 2, 2026, to prepare comments on the complaint and also drew attention to the possibility of an amicable settlement. The Court of Appeal set the bail to facilitate such a settlement.

More than a month has passed, but Shufrych remains in the detention center. It turned out that fulfilling the court decision and paying the bail is practically impossible.

Lawyer Viktor Karpenko received an official response from "PrivatBank" stating that bail payments are blocked due to personal economic sanctions imposed on Shufrych in 2025 by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

To make the decision on blocking, the bank uses software that gathers all information about the individual, excluding personal bias — meaning there is no point in trying to persuade a bank employee to process the payment.

The law allows third parties to pay bail for the accused. Relatives and acquaintances tried to transfer small amounts from various bank cards. Some payments initially seemed to go through, but after a week or two, the money was returned. Subsequently, the payers themselves fell under internal bank monitoring — now they cannot freely use their bank cards, as any of their transactions are checked by the bank for several hours.

Currently, Shufrych’s defense team has submitted a request to the National Bank and is awaiting a response on how bail can be paid in this case.

Lawyer Rostyslav Kravets, who defends the sanctioned ex-president of JSC "Motor Sich" Vyacheslav Boguslaev, claims that the National Bank prohibits any payments in the interest of the accused.

In November 2025, Kravets received a response from the National Bank stating that «a third party may pay funds as bail for a sanctioned person under the following conditions:

1) the funds are not the property of the sanctioned person to whom the sanction of ’asset freezing’ applies;

2) the funds are not paid on behalf of such a sanctioned person;

3) the payment of bail does not in any way lead to the fulfillment of economic or financial obligations in favor of the sanctioned person».

Prosecutors disappeared from the courtroom

During the hearing on February 11, Shufrych’s lawyers filed a motion with the Shevchenkivskyi District Court to change the preventive measure to one not related to detention. However, the court session could not be held because none of the prosecutors showed up without providing any explanation, although previously two of them always attended. The court announced a one-month break and stated that it would send a letter to the Office of the Prosecutor General to clarify the reasons for the prosecutors’ absence.

However, Shufrych and his defenders did not necessarily have to wait a month. This is because a complaint about the preventive measure could have been considered by the Kyiv Court of Appeal on February 12. But on the morning before the court session, the panel of judges was changed. Instead of the panel consisting of Mosyondz, Tyutyun, and Shrol, the case was reassigned to a panel of judges consisting of Sitaylo, Dryha, and Yakovleva.

Officially, the participants were not informed of the reasons for the change in the panel of judges. The report on the reassignment of the case noted the occurrence of circumstances that made it impossible for the reporting judge, Ivan Mosyondz, to participate. While waiting for the court session, a journalist overheard the court secretary informing a participant in another case that Judge Mosyondz was absent because he «went to a meeting at the Supreme Court».

On February 12, after a three-hour wait, the session lasted only a few minutes — the new panel of judges announced that they had not had time to study the appeals. Therefore, the hearing was postponed to February 16. Prosecutors Nazariy Rafaliont and Ihor Ivantsov said they would be busy with another court proceeding in Brovary. However, the presiding judge, Olena Sitaylo, stated that the group of prosecutors is large and «this issue can be resolved».

On February 16, prosecutors Ihor Ivantsov and Petro Nevyrets appeared in court. The session was delayed by almost an hour. Around 2:45 PM, as Shufrych was being escorted to the courtroom, it became clear that the prosecutors had already left. Prosecutor Ivantsov reportedly referred to instructions from management to «go to the Supreme Court».

— Around 2:20-2:30 PM, prosecutors Nevyrets and Ivantsov were in the premises of the appellate court. We spoke with them. Then, when the defense was invited to the courtroom and our client was brought in, the prosecutors mysteriously disappeared. We call and write to them — they do not respond. The senior prosecutor of the group, Potapenko, was informed that the prosecutors from his group had left the court premises. He also does not respond. We have already encountered this during the last court session in the Shevchenkivskyi District Court — not a single prosecutor showed up in court and did not report the reasons for their absence… — explained lawyer Viktor Karpenko in court.

After the start of the session, it became known that letters from the prosecutors had been received by the court’s email, stating that they were at the Brovary City-District Court of Kyiv region.

Lawyer Dmytro Savytskyi believes that the prosecutors showed disrespect to the court. After all, the Office of the Prosecutor General had been informed about the court session in advance.

— Prosecutors Nevyrets and Ivantsov came and suddenly submitted handwritten statements claiming there was a scheduling conflict with other sessions. I understand that these statements are situational and artificially created. If they had court sessions, why did they show up here? When a person knows they have a court session, such a statement is submitted in advance, and the prosecutor does not physically appear. This is a demonstration of disrespect to the court, a restriction of our right to appeal, and a denial of access to justice. I ask the court to react appropriately, — said Savytskyi.

Shufrych read the prosecutors’ letters and called their explanation a harsh manipulation.

— They took advantage of the fact that the court did not start on time. There are hundreds of prosecutors in the Office of the Prosecutor General. But how can they plan their work so that at 3:30 PM they are obligated to be somewhere else in another process (in Brovary, — ed.) without knowing how long our process would last starting at 2:00 PM (…) Their next step will be to oppose my delivery to court. They are systematically disrupting sessions, especially after the ECHR, after the relevant reactions that have already taken place. For the next session, if I am not present, I trust my lawyers to consider it without my presence.

The presiding judge confirmed that the accused has such a right, but a written statement from him is required. It turned out that such a statement had already been prepared in advance in case Shufrych could not be delivered to court.

Lawyer Karpenko stated that, in his opinion, the appeal could be considered without the participation of the prosecutors.

— Formally, we believe this is a refusal to prosecute, and we can proceed without them. If the Office of the Prosecutor General can violate all the principles of the Criminal Procedure Code regarding a sitting people’s deputy, then we can imagine what happens in other cases. If the case is considered without them, let them shout that it was an illegal court decision. I laugh, understanding that there will be no violation of the law. But I would like to ’punish’ them once so that in the future, they know that such behavior is unacceptable.

Shufrych emphasized that currently, in his case at the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv, only the order of evidence examination has been established. Only one defense witness was questioned ahead of schedule — Shufrych’s son, who is fighting on the front lines and was previously an assistant to lawyer Lytvynenko, who handled family cases. The son testified that his father had no connection to the property security contract in Crimea. The grandfather, as the property owner, upon learning of the involvement of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, ordered the termination of the contract, which ultimately lasted only one month.

— They have no evidence, so they are in no hurry, which is why they disrupt sessions. In the Shevchenkivskyi Court, they disrupted a session where we were supposed to hear who the witnesses are and examine at least one document from the criminal case. My father was not questioned. In January [2025], he passed away. He is still unburied because he is waiting for his son and grandsons to gather to bury him properly, not under escort. We took this sin upon ourselves to ensure everything is done humanely.

The court postponed the consideration of the appeal until the beginning of March.

As a reminder, Shufrych is being tried for treason and financing actions aimed at changing the territory or state borders of Ukraine. He categorically denies the charges.

The first part of the accusation concerns a Telegram correspondence with former Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine Volodymyr Sivkovych in July-September 2021. Shufrych allegedly coordinated with Sivkovych, as a representative of the Russian FSB, his critical media appearances about the Ukrainian authorities and made certain parliamentary inquiries at his direction.

The second part of the accusation pertains to the payment for services of a Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs enterprise for the security of Shufrych’s father’s property in annexed Crimea in 2016.