The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) has announced opening a criminal case under "high treason" in connection with damaging the military defense capability of the country as a result of actions taken by former officials at Ukraine's Defense Ministry, Member of Parliament (Petro Poroshenko Bloc) Ivan Vinnyk has said.

'There was a discussion about whether the actions of previous ministers of defense did not contain elements of a crime that qualifies under Article 111 (high treason). From the letter that the National Security and Defense Committee (NSDC) received from the PGO, we learned that the case is being pursued under Part 1 of Article 111 (high treason)," Vinnyk said at a meeting of the parliament's temporary investigative commission he heads to study information about the facts about plundering Ukraine's Armed Forces and undermining Defense Ministry capabilities during 2004-2017.

Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko on February 4, 2019, at a meeting of the commission said actions of the chiefs of the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces and defense ministers from 1991 to 2017 contributed to a decrease in the country's defense capability and could be qualified as acts of treason.