MOSCOW, May 3. /TASS/. The Second Western Military District Court has received the files of the criminal case against former Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Yarema, who is charged with aiding terrorism, the court's electronic database shows.

Yarema is also charged with knowingly spreading false information about the Russian armed forces. He will be tried in absentia.

Yarema served in the Ukrainian police until 2005, and then retired with the rank of lieutenant general. He held the office of a Ukraine's first deputy prime minister from February 27 to June 19, 2014. He was then appointed Ukraine’s prosecutor general, holding the position until February 10, 2015.

It was reported in December 2022 that the Russian Interior Ministry put Yarema on a wanted persons list as he was charged in absentia for the unlawful decision to start a counterterrorism operation in Donbass.