Lawmaker Dmytruk Flees Ukraine, Apparently To Avoid Investigation

Ukrainian lawmaker Artem Dmytruk (file photo)

Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigations said on August 25 that it had launched a probe into an illegal border-crossing by a lawmaker who fled the country after he was informed he was suspected of attacking citizens. Also on August 25, the Prosecutor-General's Office said a lawmaker was suspected of attacking a law enforcement official and a military officer, attempting to steal a firearm, hooliganism, and inflicting bodily harm on a person. Media reports identified the lawmaker as Artem Dmytruk, who publicly criticized the incursion by Ukrainian armed forces into Russia's Kursk region, as well as Kyiv's move to ban the Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, click here.