An updated suspicion notification was not handed to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Friday, January 27, as this must be done in line with the international legal assistance procedure, Yanukovych's lawyer Ihor Fedorenko said.

Speaking to Interfax-Ukraine on Friday, Fedorenko said he had appeared at the Ukrainian Chief Military Prosecutor's Office earlier in the day so as to officially inform it once again of valid reasons for Yanukovych's inability to appear for investigative procedures.

The investigator was unable to hand the updated suspicion notification to Yanukovych, as this can be done only as part of an international legal assistance procedure in Russia's territory, he said.

The parties drew up a report, which the investigator signed and which would be transferred to the prosecution authorities, Fedorenko said.

Vitaliy Serdiuk, another lawyer for Yanukovych, told Interfax-Ukraine that he was on a mission to Russia on Friday, January 27, to speed up the proceedings on requests for international legal assistance that the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office had sent to Russia at the end of 2016.

In these requests, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office asked for information whether Yanukovych had Russian citizenship and about his actual address and for assistance in handing a suspicion notification to Yanukovych and arranging his interrogation in a high treason case.

Maksym Krym, a prosecutor from the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office, told journalists on Friday, January 27, that the lawyers' refusal to personally accept updated suspicion notifications addressed to Yanukovych did not affect the pretrial inquiry.

"The fact of refusal for any reasons has absolutely no effect on progress in the pretrial inquiry, and I hope we will announce its completion and will open its documents to the defense in the near future," he said.

Yanukovych's lawyer personally appeared at the Prosecutor General's Office, where he officially confirmed in writing that he was unwilling to accept the suspicion notification.

"At the same time, this notification was simultaneously sent by mail to the address of the office where they [the defense lawyers] practice law, and so the Prosecutor General's Office has taken measures to present this notification," Krym said.

As the inquiry is proceeding in the suspect's absence, the suspicion notification is supposed to be handed to the suspect's lawyers, he said.

"He [Yanukovych's lawyer] had the chance to receive it, and therefore he is considered a person notified about the updated suspicion," he said.

Ruslan Kravchenko, a prosecutor from the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office, had said earlier on January 27 that the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office would hand an updated high treason suspicion notification to Yanukovych's defense team.

Kyiv's Pechersky District Court had earlier granted a military prosecutor's motion on authorizing a special pretrial inquiry in absentia into a high treason case against Yanukovych.

The Prosecutor General's Office said it planned to hand an updated suspicion notification to Yanukovych's defense team on January 27.

Yanukovych has faced criminal charges of high treason, aiding deliberate efforts to change Ukraine's territorial borders and national border in breach of the country's constitution, and facilitating an aggressive war since November 28, 2016.