The defense lawyer for Russian military serviceman Alexander Alexandrov, Yuriy Hrabovsky, has been found killed; his suspected murderers have been apprehended, the Ukrainian National Bar Association has said.

"We have heard the tragic news today. Lawyer Yuriy Hrabovsky has been found murdered. The suspects have been detained, and we hope that everyone involved in the killing of our colleague will be punished," the Ukrainian National Bar Association wrote on Facebook on Friday.

As reported earlier, Kyiv's Holosiyivsky District Court on March 9 rescheduled hearings in a criminal case against two Russian special security force officers Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov, due to absence of lawyer Hrabovsky. The whereabouts of Hrabovsky, born in 1972, have not been known to police since March 5, 2016, Odesa regional police spokeswoman Darya Yarchuk said.

On March 20, Ukrainian Deputy Prosecutor General and chief military prosecutor Anatoliy Matios announced the arrest of a suspect in organizing the lawyer's disappearance. He said the operation had been planned by "former Ukrainians" and Russian intelligence agencies "for creating a picture" at the final stage of the hearings in the case against the two Russians.

The following day, Matios said there was information that foreign intelligence agencies had been plotting to kill Yerofeyev and Alexandrov in central Kyiv, and that the decision to eliminate them was made because kidnapping them did not appear possible to the foreign intelligence agencies.