The lawyer for disgraced former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Vitaliy Serdiuk, has requested the Pechersky district court in Kyiv to interview, as witnesses, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Verkhovna Rada Speaker Andriy Parubiy, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov, in the presence of his client in the videoconference format.

"I request to hold the interrogation of witnesses Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk, Parubiy, Klitschko, Turchynov at the court hearing at the address of the Pechersky district court of the city of Kyiv in the presence of the parties to the criminal proceedings, and in the personal presence of the defense attorney of suspect Yanukovych, lawyer Serdiuk, at the court hearing, and in the presence of suspect Yanukovych via videoconference, and with observance of other rules applied to holding an interrogation during a court hearing," the motion filed on August 18, which text is available to Interfax-Ukraine, said.

In the motion, Yanukovych's lawyer speaks of an interrogation as part of the pre-trial investigation of the criminal case opened over the alleged illegal obstruction of gatherings and rallies held in Kyiv from January 20 - February 21, 2014 by officers of higher bodies of state authority and law enforcement agencies, as well as mass killings of people and other offences aimed at illegal suppression of protests at the time.

In Serdiuk's view, the stance of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office on the issue of holding the interrogation of top Ukrainian public officials with participation of Yanukovych is "another pretext voluntarily created by the Prosecutor General's Office to prevent collecting information from Yanukovych and questioning him".