Kiev, Ukraine. In a story straight out of a good writer of fiction, comes one about Russia “blackmailing” a Ukrainian into stealing a plane and flying it to Russia for a new life there and a cash prize. Welcome to where strange meets Ukrainian court tales of woe and retardation.
In Ukraine the Kmelnitskyi city district court sentenced a major in the Ukrainian Armed Forces for trying to steal a jet fighter aircraft and fly it to Russia, supposedly the strange event happening in September of 2014 according to the court records.
Ukrainian prosecutors and judges have tried and re-tried the case into double-jeopardy and mistrail heaven, but then protections like that in Ukrainian jurisprudence are a fantasy-much like this story!
Anyway, the case was considered repeatedly in court. The first time, the major was sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment, but for procedural reasons, the ruling of the Starokonstantinovsky court did not come into force, and a new trial was appointed, the press service of the Military Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine reported.
In the second botched attempt, the officer was found guilty of high treason (s. 1 art. 111 of the Criminal Code) and sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment. The title of “major” was also taken away from him.
The court came to the conclusion that the soldier intentionally gave representatives of Russia classified documents, specifically, complete information on the flight plan of a Su-34MR aircraft and military reconnaissance plane.
During the special flight on September 8, he deviated from the planned course in the Shostka region, and directed the plane towards the state border with Russia.
However, without knowing how to contact the Russians, and without having the ability to independently make it to the airports in Russian territory, the pilot was forced to land the plane in Myrhorod. He was banned from flying further and arrested shortly thereafter according to our Ukrainian fairy tale tellers.
The officer, a native of the Russian city of Khabarovsk, was the deputy commander of the 3rd aviation squadron of the 7th tactical aviation brigade. During the trial, witnesses said that he supported the annexation of the Crimea, had a negative opinion of the Ukrainian Armed Force’s operation in the Donbass, and effectively sabotaged reconnaissance flights. Perfectly believeable as most people engaged in treason, at least according to Kiev, announce it publicly and often!
Where the story gets bizarre, if that is even possible-is he has a brother in Russia – a retired colonel of the Russian Armed Forces, now a clergyman. In June 2014 the brother came to Ukraine and suggested stealing a plane for money. Because 9 out of 10 clergymembers in Russia deal in stolen jet fighter aircraft (wtf?).
Later, to make the pilot think faster, his wife and daughter, who had gone to Russia to visit relatives, were detained. For three weeks they were supposedly forcibly held in hotels in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, at least according to the looney tunes in the Ukrainian military prosecutors office.
Of course the cherry on the ice cream is supposedly during this time, the pilot was contacted by a Russian intelligence officer acting under the pseudonym “Glavvrach” (“head doctor”), who offered him the title of colonel in the Russian Armed Forces, accommodation, and $30,000 for stealing the plane. At the same time, he threatened that force would be used against his wife and daughter. The Ukrainian pilot agreed to this offer. We swear this is actually taken from court records and media sources of the Kiev backed junta.