Two Senators of the Ukrainian Government were summoned to testify. After Vitaly Markiv was arrested in August 2017, both of them voluntarily presented themselves to the public prosecutor’s office of Pavia as the maximum experts of the event. Their deposition had been received and recorded by the Special Operation Squad in Milan: the two senators had given two contrasting versions of the events.
During the hearing, their versions has been analyzed again in front of the Court.
Both conversations have been extremely disagreeable due to the sense of reticence, weakening of the truth and significant will of not telling the truth to the Court, from the witnesses. Moreover there were many difficulties with the translation.
Bogdan Matkivskyi
In May 2014 he was on the Karachun hill from which the attack killing Andy and Andrej came. He was the head of the platoon 2 in Slaviansk, not the Markiv’s same one);
- Reticent towards the presence of written documents attesting Markiv’s presence in the site (documented by the selfie video found among the sequestered material): he also mentions some tables with orders, shifts and position of each soldier;
- Confirms that each soldier wouldn’t move from the assigned position;
- Underlines the difference among the role of the Ukrainian National Guard and the role of the Army: the first one is a reserve military unit subject to the Government, that was disbanded in 2000 and then funded again in March 2014. The controversial Azov e Donbass battalion are a part of the GNU and they are mostly made by Ukrainian, European and even Italian volunteers. The accused was part of the GNU. The Army is the legitimate army, subject to the Ministry of Defense and lead by the general Zabrowski.
- The senator also confirms that the Army used to have mortars as part of their equipment.
- The witness and the jury are shown a sketch made by the witness himself representing the peak of the Karachun hill and the positions of the military equipment and the accused. The sketch is confirmed and compared with the video selfie mentioned above, as well as with the different declarations granted during the conversations taken place in August.
- Recognizes almost all the names of the soldiers listed by the public prosecutor Zanoncelli.
- Even though he was on that hill on the 24th May 2014, the senator asserts that he only got to know around mid June or even July about the killing of Andy and Andrej.
Andrii Antonyschak
He is currently a senator in Ukraine and was one of the Heads of the National Guard. During the hearing he was wearing the singular uniform full of pendants. Following below are his declarations:
- He got to know about the events at least one month after the attack. He had never been on the Karachun hill before mid-June.
- No written orders for attained.
- Reticent regarding the National Guard territorial jurisdiction;
- The National Guard did not have mortars as part of their equipment;
- Markiv’s position: he could have seen the area of the attack if he had turned his head of just a few degrees. But the senator specify that it was not the soldiers’ task to turn…
- Recognizes some names of the other soldiers listed by the public prosecutor.