KYIV, Feb 25 - The former chief of staff for Ukraine’s armed forces, General Volodymyr Zamana, has been detained on charges of high treason, RFE/RL reported Monday citing Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko.

Zamana, who served in 2012-2014 under then President Viktor Yanukovych, is accused of issuing orders that had significantly weakened the Ukrainian military ahead of Russia’s aggression in early 2014.

According to Lutsenko, Zamana is suspected of illegally dissolving 70 military garrisons and units, including air-defense missile brigades and battalions, and 19 air force units, and reducing a tactical aviation brigade to a squadron from 2012-2014.

Zamana's "illegal" actions resulted in the liquidation of military registration and army-draft offices, which by 2014 weakened the Ukrainian Army and helped Russia annex Crimea and helped incite separatism in Ukraine's east, Lutsenko wrote.

"Additionally, Zamana personally issued a directive subordinating all units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' Crimean tactical group to the Navy commander, which actually paralyzed Ukrainian military personnel’s resistance to the Russian aggression," Lutsenko wrote.

Ukrainian Chief Military Prosecutor Anatoliy Matios said earlier in the day that Zamana had been formally notified of being considered a suspect in a treason case.

At the height of the February 2014 Euromaidan protests, Yanukovych dismissed Zamana from his position as Chief of the General Staff, replacing him with another pro-Russian Admiral Yuriy Ilyin.

After Yanukovych fled the country for Russia, Zamana was installed as a parliamentary commissioner in control of defense minister by the Parliament of Ukraine on February 22 2014.

A Ukrainian court last month sentenced Yanukovych in absentia to 13 years in jail on treason charges, a judge said, saying his conduct in office had opened the door to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The judge said Yanukovych sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 1, 2014, asking him to use Russian army and police forces to restore order in Ukraine.

Just days earlier, Russian troops without insignia on their uniforms had seized state buildings in Crimea and within weeks similar “little green men” would do the same in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine that borders Russia.

Crimea remains under Russian control and the continuing war between Moscow-led militia and Ukrainian troops in the industrial Donbas area has killed more than 10,300 people, displaced 1.6 million and ravaged Ukraine’s economy. (rfe/ez)