Series of deaths from Ukrainian opposition activists

The scene of the attack on Oles Busyna on April 17, 2015

The streak of deaths of Ukrainian opposition members consists of partly unexplained deaths and attacks on pro-Russian opposition members in Ukraine in 2015.

Deaths

Ukrainian media reported more than ten deaths, some of which were alleged suicides. Most of the victims were representatives from politics and the media.

The fatalities include:

Mykola Serhiyenko , the former deputy general director of the Ukrainian railway company Ukrzalisnytsja , who was appointed by then Prime Minister Mykola Azarov , was found shot dead in his home in Kiev on January 26;

Alexei Kolesnik, former head of the Kharkiv Oblast regional government , was found hanged on January 29;

Serhiy Walter , former mayor of Melitopol , was found hanged on February 25;

Oleksandr Bordjuga, Deputy Police Chief of Melitopol, was found dead in his garage on the morning of February 26;

Mikhailo Chechetov, a senior parliamentarian for the Party of Regions and former head of the State Real Estate Fund, fell from his 17th floor apartment on February 28; he left a suicide note;

Stanislaw Melnyk ( Станісла́в Анато́лійович Ме́льник ), a former MP and member of the Party of Regions , was found shot dead on March 9 in his apartment in Ukrajinka ;

Oleksandr Pekluschenko ( Олександр Миколайович Пеклушенко ), a member of the Party of Regions and Governor of Zaporizhia Oblast from 2011 to 2014 , was found dead on March 12 in his home in Sonyachne, alleged to have committed suicide with a gunshot in the neck;

Serhiy Melnichuk, a prosecutor in Odessa and a member of the Party of Regions, fell from the ninth floor of an apartment building in Odessa on March 14

All eight people were members / employees of Yanukovych's former ruling party, Party of Regions.

The most recent cases in April include:

on April 13, 2015 Serhiy Sukhobok ( Сергій Анатолійович Сухобок , journalist);
on April 15, Oleh Kalashnikov (politician and anti-Maidan activist) was found shot dead in his home in Kiev;
on April 16, Olga Moros (editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Neteschinski Westnik") was found dead in her apartment in Khmelnytskyi Oblast ;
On April 16, Oles Busyna (journalist and publicist critical of the government, former editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper " Sevodnja " by Rinat Akhmetov ) was shot dead in the street in front of the house entrance of his apartment in downtown Kiev. The two masked perpetrators escaped unrecognized.

Reactions

The Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko sentenced on April 16 in Kiev the apparent murders as "deliberate provocation" that "oil on the mills pour our enemies and the situation in Ukraine destabilize". He called on his own authorities to conduct a "transparent investigation". Two of the murders in Ukraine actually happened on the one hand the day before and on the other hand exactly during the annual television appearance “Direct Line” of the Russian President , Vladimir Putin , who commented: “It is not the first political murder, in Ukraine there was one whole series of such killings. ”Other reports assumed that the Russian secret service had started the assassinations in preparation for a new offensive expected in May 2015. What is considered a fact, however, is that the murdered Kalashnikov could have made statements about the organization of the anti-Maidan. It was known that both Kalashnikov and Busina were to appear as witnesses in an investigation into the anti-Maidan protests in favor of the then state power and that traces of them could lead to Moscow.

Volodymyr Fessenko, Head of PENTA

Volodymyr Fesenko ( Володимир В'ячеславович Фесенко ), head of the Center for Applied Political Studies Penta ( Центр прикладних політичних досліджень "Пента" ), spread in an interview with the Ukrainian news agency Unian the theory that the murders were of pro-Russian forces mostly for the Russian audience was staged to confirm the thesis of political terror in Ukraine. Kalashnikov and Busyna are known, but relatively unimportant in the pro-Russian protest movement and are therefore a "ritual sacrifice on the altar of Russian propaganda". The murders were also carried out in Europe to discredit Ukraine. Some members of the opposition bloc from Yanukovych's former Party of Regions also consider Russian interference to be conceivable and the letter of confession from an alleged Ukrainian insurgent army to be falsified.

According to a Spiegel report from April 17, 2015, shortly before his death, Oleh Kalashnikov wrote a letter to his friends about an Internet portal calling for vigilante justice. He had received death threats and warned that "open murders of dissidents, death threats and constant dirty insults" have become commonplace. The website is called “ Mirotworez ” (German: peacemaker) and lists “enemies of the people”, including detailed profiles - Kalashnikov's address was made public there, and in the case of journalist Oles Busyna even a cell phone number. Both entries had only been created a few days earlier.

On the evening of April 17, 2015, an email sender from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) assumed responsibility for attacks. The sender name is based on the historical militia UPA . In the email sent to opposition MPs and political commentators, the “UPA” asked “anti-Ukrainian” people to leave the country within 72 hours, otherwise they would be killed. The e-mail threatened the "complete extermination" of the "enemies of Ukraine" and announced "a merciless insurrectionary fight against the anti-Ukrainian regime of traitors and Moscow droolers". To prove their perpetrators, the email gave details of the murders that had not been published until then, such as the exact time and caliber of the weapons, but also an exchange of fire that Ukrainian claims did not take place. Anton Geraschenko, advisor to the Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior in Kiev, described the senders as psychopaths.

The United Nations has asked for full clarification. The crimes are worrying, said a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Said Raad al-Hussein, in Geneva. A “quick, independent and credible investigation” and the punishment of those responsible are necessary.

Individual evidence

↑ Ukraine Two government opponents killed in Kiev , Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 16, 2015

↑ David Stern: What's behind the high-profile deaths in Ukraine? , BBC News, April 17, 2015

↑ Compare: “mysterious circumstances” Yanukovych ally Peklushenko in new Ukraine mystery death , BBC News, March 12, 2015

↑ Ex-governor of the Ukrainian Oblast of Zaporizhia found dead in his house (in English) . TASS . March 12, 2015. Accessed February 17, 2020.

↑ killed pro-Russian journalist in Kiev , Time, April 16, 2015

↑ Assassinations against pro-Russian journalists and politicians in Ukraine , Heise, April 17, 2015; “For example, one comment said,“ Putin needs corpses in Ukraine ”in order to finally be able to prove that there is fascist terror, which he has only been able to claim so far. So far, all attempts at destabilization through attacks to provoke attacks on the Russian population have not been successful. With the assassination attempts, the Russian secret service has now begun to prepare a new offensive, which is expected until May 9th. "

^ Murder of pro-Russian personalities - Confession of Ukrainian Nationalists , NZZ, April 17, 2015; “Another thesis said that the two have become victims of settlements within the former government camp. Kalashnikov is said to have had inside information on the financing of the “Anti-Maidan”, which - according to speculation in Kiev - leads to Moscow. A number of other mysterious deaths of former Yanukovych supporters also fit into this explanatory pattern. For three of them, suicide is cited as the cause of death. "

↑ A mysterious series of murders shakes the Ukraine , nachrichten.at, April 18, 2015

↑ Recently shot Buzyna and Kalashnikov 'ritual sacrifice' on altar of Russian propaganda - expert , April 16, 2015