The Prymorskyi District Court of Odesa is hearing a case of medical negligence that may have caused the death of businessman Adnan Kivan at the Odrex private clinic. Read about the current stage of the proceedings and the positions of the parties in the UNN report.
In the Prymorskyi District Court of Odesa, presided over by Judge Larysa Pereverzieva, the trial continues regarding medical negligence that may have caused the death of businessman Adnan Kivan at the Odrex private clinic.
The defendants in the case are Odrex surgeon Vitaliy Rusakov and oncologist Maryna Belotserkovska, who has already been dismissed from the Odesa clinic. Criminal proceedings were initiated under Part 1 of Article 140 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine – improper performance of professional duties by a medical worker.
According to the investigation's version, after surgery at the Odrex clinic, patient Adnan Kivan was not prescribed the necessary antibacterial therapy and complications were not properly addressed. As a result, sepsis developed, which, according to expert findings, could have been the cause of death.
On the eve of the hearing scheduled for 05.05.26, the accused surgeon published a vlog in which he openly criticizes the court, prosecutors, and the format of the process, potentially attempting to present himself not as a defendant in a specific criminal case, but as a sacred victim of the system.
One of the main focuses in his once-again-changed rhetoric is the claim of an allegedly "closed court," which supposedly deprives him of the opportunity to publicly defend his name. Interestingly, he states this in yet another vlog dedicated exclusively to the consideration of his criminal case – which, in essence, is his public self-defense.
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Instead, after watching the video, a viewer might get the impression that the accused Odrex surgeon is trying to convince the public that the process is completely closed. At the same time, the actual circumstances indicate otherwise: it is not a closed trial, but only a restriction on openness during the consideration of issues containing personal data and medical information of the patient Adnan Kivan.
Such a format directly complies with the norms of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, which provides for the possibility of holding closed or partially closed court sessions in cases where it is necessary to protect medical secrecy and a person's private life. We can conclude that the doctor is trying to interpret the norms of the CPC in a way convenient for himself, simplifying them to a primitive interpretation.
The judge ignored my defense's arguments and the appeals from medical communities regarding the openness of the process. Thus, I was deprived of the opportunity to publicly defend my name, specifically at the stage of examining medical documents, which are the basis of my defense
photo of Rusakov
Moreover, in Rusakov's public communication, any court decision he dislikes is automatically presented as "bias," "persecution," or "playing along with the prosecutor." Such logic reduces a complex judicial process to a primitive scheme: everything beneficial to the defendant is fair, everything else is wrong.
Another telling moment of manipulation is the attempt to scale his own criminal case to the entire medical system of Ukraine. The doctor's rhetoric features the thesis that the partial closure of the court due to medical secrecy could become a threat to all medics in the country.
So you understand, in the future, almost every session could be closed under the argument of non-disclosure of medical secrets or private life. The question arises: how are doctors to defend themselves in such courts? If any medical case is a priori a medical secret, then any verdict can be drawn behind closed doors. If we allow closing trials of doctors today, tomorrow any death in a hospital, even at stage 4 oncology, will become a reason for a quiet kangaroo court
It should be noted that in this case, the court is not considering the "fate of Ukrainian medicine" or an abstract right of doctors to "court openness." The court must establish whether the actions of specific medical workers were appropriate in a specific situation with a specific patient.
Notably, such rhetoric is not new for the accused doctor and has been used by him previously in public communication. Rusakov promoted similar apocalyptic logic, claiming that in the event of a guilty verdict in his case, all doctors in Ukraine would allegedly begin to refuse "complex" patients en masse.
Reminder
Separately, it is striking that Rusakov may be using the trial over his patient's death as a platform for self-promotion. He records regular video blogs, calls on people to come to court, and subscribe to his YouTube channel in attempts to increase his own popularity.
At the same time, such communication is reinforced at the level of the medical institution. As UNN reported earlier, the Odrex clinic promotes Vitaliy Rusakov on its social media, trying to create an image of a "savior doctor" for him, while remaining silent about the fact that he is a defendant in a criminal case regarding possible medical negligence that could have led to a patient's death.