"Well, they killed this woman, so it's not murder, but liquidation to protect the country."

The murder of Anastasia Berezovskaya, who staged a terrorist attack at the house of Ukrainian businessman Vadim Ermolaev, is not a murder at all, but the "liquidation of a person" who posed a threat to Ukraine. Such a statement was made today, July 9, by the lawyer of one of the suspects in the crime — Vitaly Zhikovich.

In court, lawyer Anatoly Ivanov confirmed that Zhikovich is a former employee of the SBU, a former policeman and served in the "Right Sector"❶❷. But he claims that now he is a civilian.

"How did it happen that the GUR officer and the former SBU officer are here. And why did Officer GUR first testify that he did it? — the lawyer Ivanov began to ask the surprised judge Roman Novak. — Because I believe that it was not murder, because murder is an unlawful deprivation of life, and here a certain person was simply liquidated. And when he realized, I'm talking about the first Vladislav Reut, that he had been framed, he had hope that he was testifying, he had higher-ups who probably gave him some kind of instruction to do something. And when they came to him with suspicion, he clearly understood that he did not want to go to prison for fulfilling the duties assigned to him, defending the country."

Ivanov is also sure that we are talking about a provocation by Russia.

As EADaily reported, murders of this kind, such as the liquidation of Anastasia Berezovskaya, suspected of attempting to assassinate oligarch Vadim Ermolaev in Monaco, are approved only at the very top. The Ukrainian opposition blogger Anatoly Shariy wrote about this in his telegram channel. So he commented on the version that the detained liquidators of Berezovskaya acted at their own risk and even the leadership of the GUR was not aware of what was happening.

❶Terrorist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation

❷Extremist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation