The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) will check the circumstances of the vote on the ratification of the "Kharkiv Agreements" in 2010 and, if there are grounds, criminal proceedings will be opened under the article on treason against deputies of the VI convocation, said Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine.

"There is a separate instruction from the SBU to find out in what way these 236 deputies voted on this issue. If the SBU considers it necessary, it should open (proceedings) under Article 111 of the Criminal Code (treason) to the relevant persons," Danilov said at a briefing in Kyiv at the end of the meeting of the NSDC on Thursday.

According to him, the topic of voting by the deputies arose during the discussion of the strategy of de-occupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.

"In preparation for this issue, the NSDC staff studied the documents that we have. In 2008, the NSDC decided that within two months the Cabinet was to propose a bill on the settlement of the issue of the withdrawal of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation in 2017," said the secretary of the NSDC.

In this context, he continued: "Unfortunately, for reasons unknown to us, this bill was not developed. And we believe that it was the first brick that further began to destroy our entire security system and led to the emergence in 2010 called 'Kharkiv agreements', which in an unprecedented short period of time, four days after their signing in Kharkiv, were ratified by the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada."

The NSDC Secretary recalled that the parliamentary vote on this issue was on April 27, 2010. He drew attention to the fact that some of the people who voted on this issue "continue to be engaged in Ukrainian politics."

"The consequence of that vote is the occupied Crimea and big problems in Donetsk and Luhansk regions," he added.