Nazi Terrorists in Ukraine

Those old enough to remember when President Clinton's penis was a big news item will also remember the "Peace Dividend," that the world was going to be able to cash now that that nasty cold war was over. But guess what? Those spies didn't want to come in from the Cold, so while the planet is heating up, the political environment is dropping to sub-zero temperatures. It's deja vu all over again.

Re: Nazi Terrorists in Ukraine

Postby admin » Wed Oct 09, 2024 10:43 pm

Part 1 of 2

“You Don’t Exist”. Arbitrary Detentions, Enforced Disappearances, and Torture in Eastern Ukraine
by Human Rights Watch
July 21, 2016
https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/07/21/y ... re-eastern

Image
© 2016 Human Rights Watch cover illustration with two men tied up

Summary

In April 2015, Vadim, 39, was traveling on a shuttle bus home to Donetsk, the capital of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine. He had boarded in Slovyansk, which is under Ukrainian government control. At a checkpoint manned by Ukrainian forces, a gunman ordered him off the bus. Armed men in camouflaged uniforms without insignia tied Vadim’s hands behind his back, pulled a bag over his head, pushed him to his knees, calling him a “separatist thug,” and questioned him about his connections in Slovyansk. Then, they threw him into the back seat of a car and drove off to a base full of armed people, where he was kept in unacknowledged detention for three days, interrogated, and tortured. Then, his captors transferred him to another unlawful detention facility, apparently maintained by Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) personnel. Vadim spent another six weeks there inunacknowledgeddetentionwithout any contact with the outside world. During his time in captivity, Vadim’s interrogators tortured him with electric shocks, burned him with cigarettes, and beat him, demanding that he confess to working for Russia-backed separatists. Finally, they released him. Vadim returned to Donetsk and was immediately detained by local de facto authorities, who suspected him of having been recruited by the SBU during his time in captivity. He spent over two months in incommunicado detention in an unofficial prison in central Donetsk where his captors, again, beat and ill-treated him.

Both the Ukrainian government authorities and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine have held civilians in prolonged, arbitrary detention, without any contact with the outside world, including with their lawyers or families. In some cases, the detentions constituted enforced disappearances, meaning that the authorities in question refused to acknowledge the detention of the person or refused to provide any information on their whereabouts or fate. Most of those detained suffered torture or other forms of ill-treatment. Several were denied needed medical attention for the injuries they sustained in detention.

In cases documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the Ukrainian authorities and pro-Kyiv paramilitary groups detained civilians suspected of involvement with or supporting Russia-backed separatists, while the separatist forces have detained civilians suspected of supporting or spying for the Ukrainian government. Vadim’s case stands out because, of all the people we interviewed, he was the only one who was held in secret detention and tortured first by one side, then the other.

Image
Map of Ukraine

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch investigated in detail nine cases of arbitrary, prolonged detention of civilians by the Ukrainian authorities in informal detention sites and nine cases of arbitrary, prolonged detention of civilians by Russia-backed separatists. This report details cases that took place mostly in 2015 and the first half of 2016.

Persons held by the warring sides in eastern Ukraine are protected under international human rights and international humanitarian law, which unequivocally ban arbitrary detention, torture, and other ill-treatment. International standards provide that allegations of torture and other ill-treatment be investigated, and that, when the evidence warrants it, the perpetrators be prosecuted. Detainees must be provided with adequate food, water, clothing, shelter, and medical care.

In almost all of the eighteen cases investigated, release of the civilian detainees was at some point discussed by the relevant side in the context of prisoner exchanges. In nine out of the eighteen cases, they were in fact exchanged. This gives rise to serious concerns that both sides may be detaining civilians in order to have “currency” for potential exchange of prisoners.

It is difficult to estimate the total number of civilians who have been the victims of the kinds of abuses documented in this report. However, the Report on the human rights situation in Ukraine 16 February to 15 May 2016 published in June 2016 by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) stated that “arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment remain deeply entrenched practices” in the region, suggesting that these problems are more widespread than the limited number of cases investigated by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Violations by the Ukrainian authorities

In most of the nine cases Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch investigated, pro-government forces, including members of so-called volunteer battalions, initially detained the individuals and then handed them over to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), who eventually moved them into the regular criminal justice system. Some were later exchanged for persons held by separatists and others released without trial.

In three cases detailed in this report the SBU allegedly continued the enforced disappearances, keeping the individuals in unacknowledged detention for periods ranging from six weeks to 15 months. One individual was exchanged, the other two simply released without trial. With regard to two of the individuals, there is no record whatsoever of their detention.

The June 2016 UN report noted that the cases of incommunicado detention and torture brought to their attention in late 2015 and early 2016 “mostly implicate SBU” and specifically mentioned the SBU compound in Kharkiv as an alleged place of unofficial detention.

Based on the research findings detailed in this report, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch believe unlawful, unacknowledged detentions have taken place in SBU premises in Kharkiv, Kramatorsk, Izyum, and Mariupol. We received compelling testimony from a range of sources, including recently released detainees, that as of June 2016 as many as 16 people remain in secret detention at the SBU premises in Kharkiv. Ukrainian authorities have denied operating any other detention facilities than their only official temporary detention center in Kyiv and denied having any information regarding the alleged abuses by SBU documented in this report.

Most interviewees told Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch they were tortured before their transfer to SBU’s facilities. Several also alleged that after being transferred to SBU premises they were, variously, beaten, subjected to electric shocks, and threatened with rape, execution, and retaliation against family members, in order to induce them to confess to involvement with separatism-related criminal activities or to provide information.

Abuses by Russia-backed separatists

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch documented nine cases in which Russia-backed separatists detained civilians incommunicado for weeks or months without charge, including as recently as early 2016, and, in most cases, subjected them to ill-treatment. Two of the individuals remain in custody as of this writing, their respective “trials” pending.

In the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), local security services operate with no checks and balances, detain individuals arbitrarily and hold them in their own detention facilities. Four of the individuals whose cases Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch documented were at some point transferred to remand prisons, where two of them were allowed access to a lawyer, but overall the vacuum of the rule of law in separatist-controlled areas deprives individuals held in custody of their rights and leaves them without recourse to any effective remedies.

Lack of access for independent monitors

In May 2016, a delegation from the UN Subcommittee for Prevention of Torture cut short a visit to Ukraine because they were unable to access some of the detention sites, under both SBU and separatist control, they wanted to visit. Speaking of the SBU sites, the delegation chief, Malcolm Evans, stressed that the team was prevented from visiting "some places where we have heard numerous and serious allegations that people have been detained and where torture or ill-treatment may have occurred."

Separatist authorities have not responded to numerous requests by OHCHR for access to places of detention, and representatives of other international organizations that have expertise on rights protection in places of detention told Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International that they do not have access to places of detention in separatist-held areas. The Council of Europe High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, also noted in his report of a visit in March 2016 that relevant interlocutors in Donetsk told him that the “‘local legislation’ does not at present allow for this kind of supervision of the places of detention.”

Key recommendations

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch call on the Ukrainian government and the de facto authorities in self-proclaimed DNR and LNR to immediately put an end to enforced disappearances and arbitrary and incommunicado detentions, and to launch zero-tolerance policies with regard to the torture and ill-treatment of detainees. All parties to the conflict must ensure that all the forces under their control are aware of the consequences of abusing detainees under international law, and that allegations of torture and ill-treatment in detention are thoroughly investigated and those responsible are held to account.

Methodology

This report is based on the findings of joint research by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which included a one-week joint mission to separatist-controlled areas of Donetsk region in May 2016, two missions to government-controlled areas of Donetsk region in February and March 2016, as well as extensive desk research and interviews conducted in person in Kyiv or by phone and Skype.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch conducted a total of 40 interviews with victims of abuses, their family members, witnesses of abuses, victims’ lawyers, representatives of international organizations working in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian government officials, representatives of the DNR, representatives of unofficial and official groups that are engaged in the negotiation of prisoner exchanges, and other sources.

All the interviews with victims were conducted after their release. Four of them asked Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch not to publish details of their cases for fear of reprisals but allowed use of the information they provided for background purposes and analysis. Our researchers spoke to all interviewees separately and in private in either Russian or Ukrainian. Wherever possible, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also gathered medical records, legal documents, and photographs from alleged torture victims and family members of the individuals still in custody. Each interviewee was made aware of the purpose of the interview and agreed to speak on a voluntary basis. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch did not provide interviewees any financial incentives to speak with us. Most interviewees chose to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals against themselves or members of their families or due to privacy concerns.

This report focuses exclusively on abuses against civilians. It does not include cases of arbitrary detention that concluded prior to spring 2015 (both organizations have extensively reported on arbitrary detention and torture in the region in 2014 and early 2015).[1]

During the joint research mission, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch met with the chief of staff for the Ombudsperson of the DNR.[2] The organizations’ delegates also sought to meet with the de facto Prosecutor’s Office but were denied a meeting.

On June 3, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch sent a letter to the head of the SBU summarizing some of our research findings, inquiring about SBU allegedly running unofficial prisons on its premises, and asking specific questions in connection with some of the documented cases. The SBU’s written reply, dated June 17, 2016, is cited in this report.[3]

I. Background: The Armed Conflict in Eastern Ukraine

The 2014 “EuroMaydan” protests led to the February 21, 2014 ousting of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Following Yanukovych’s ouster, Russian forces seized and eventually occupied Crimea. Around the same time, violence sporadically broke out in several cities and towns in eastern Ukraine between crowds of people supporting the protests in Kyiv and those opposed to it.

By mid-March, armed anti-government militia, initially calling themselves “self-defense units,” seized and occupied administrative buildings in several cities and towns in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Their demands ranged from regional autonomy within a federated Ukraine, to full independence, to joining Russia.

In April 2014, separatist forces announced the establishment of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DNR) and the “Luhansk People’s Republic” (LNR) and established control, to various degrees, in and around several other cities, towns, and villages in the two regions.

In mid-April 2014, the Ukrainian State Security Service and Interior Ministry began counter-insurgency operations, which the government called an “anti-terrorist operation.” On May 11, anti-Kyiv groups proclaimed victory in the “referenda” they organized on the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.[4] On May 16, Ukraine’s First Deputy Prosecutor General Mykola Homosha announced that the “two self-proclaimed republics, the so-called Dоnetsk’s and Luhansk’s [people’s republics] are two terrorist organizations” under Ukrainian law.[5]

From the very beginning of the armed clashes, the Russian government made clear its political support for the separatists and clearly exercised influence over them. As hostilities continued into August, compelling evidence, including reports and satellite images from NATO and the capture of Russian soldiers within Ukraine, emerged that pointed to Russian forces’ direct involvement in military operations. Conflict between Russian and Ukrainian forces is an international armed conflict governed by the relevant rules of international humanitarian law.[6]

In February 2015, the internationally brokered Minsk II accords established a ceasefire, which significantly reduced hostilities, but frequent skirmishes along the frontline and exchanges of artillery fire have continued.

The conflict led to the complete collapse of law and order in the areas controlled by Russia-backed separatists. Separatist forces attacked, beat, and threatened anyone whom they suspected of supporting the Ukrainian government, including journalists, local officials, and political and religious activists, and carried out several summary executions.[7] They also subjected detainees to forced labor and kidnapped civilians for ransom, using them as hostages.[8]

Members of Ukrainian forces and paramilitaries also subjected detainees to torture and other ill-treatment and used detained civilians as pawns for prisoner exchanges between the warring sides.[9] Credible allegations emerged of torture and other egregious abuses by Ukraine’s so-called volunteer battalions Aidar[10] and Azov.[11] By spring 2015, most volunteer battalions had been formally integrated into the official chains of command in the Ministry of Defense or the National Guard of Ukraine. However, Right Sector, a prominent far-right movement, as well as some other groups have retained their paramilitary structures. Their members operate in close cooperation with the official Ukrainian forces on or near the frontline, but remain outside any official chain of command or accountability.[12]

Between April 2014 and May 2016, mortar, rocket, and artillery attacks killed over 9,000 people—including civilians, Ukrainian government forces, and anti-government forces—in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and injured over 21,000.[13] Both separatist and government forces violated the laws of war by carrying out indiscriminate attacks in civilian-populated areas and placing civilian life at risk by not taking feasible precautionary measures when deploying artillery and other weaponry in or near civilian areas.[14]

In November 2014, the government of Ukraine withdrew social services support, including budgets for schools, hospitals, pensions, and social security, in separatist-controlled areas. Between July and December 2015, de facto authorities who exercised effective control over parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions denied authorization to most humanitarian agencies and human rights groups and expelled leading humanitarian groups from DNR and LNR.[15]

Prisoner Exchanges

Prisoner exchanges are an important context for some of the abuses described in this report. One-off, unilateral releases and exchanges began early on in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The warring parties agreed to exchange “all for all” as part of the February 2015 Minsk II accords.[16] However, there was never any clarity as to the true numbers and the identity of all those in the custody of either side. The warring parties’ figures and lists were at odds with each other. The undertaking to exchange “all for all” did not resolve this, although sporadic exchanges of smaller groups of prisoners continued. Each side continued to see it as an advantage to have more prisoners to “trade” with the other. Although Minsk II implied exchange primarily of combatants, in reality the process was extended to civilians, typically those alleged by their captors to be complicit in spying or similar activities on behalf of the other side. This has led to systematic abuse.

In several reports, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission for Ukraine (HRMMU) noted the persistent connection between arbitrary detention of civilians and prisoner exchanges. In February 2015, for example, it noted that “arbitrary detention of civilians regrettably remains a feature of the hostilities, including for the purpose of prisoner exchanges.”[17] Under international law the detention of civilians for the purpose of exchanges constitutes arbitrary detention but also hostage-taking, which is also clearly prohibited under international law.

Ukrainian law enforcement agencies have said their side was releasing “fighters suspected of terrorism or related crimes.”[18] In legal terms such “exchanges” constituted a problem. Effectively, there was no legal basis for exiting criminal suspects from official remand before the criminal proceedings against them were completed. It appears that this issue lies at the heart of some of the abuses described below, and is likely to be the reason some individuals have been held in unofficial, unacknowledged detention by the SBU: they could be exchanged without creating a paper trail and without having to resolve the arising legal complications.

II. Legal Framework

International Legal Standards


International humanitarian treaty law, as well as the rules of customary international humanitarian law, governs hostilities between the armed separatist groups and Ukrainian armed forces, as well as between Russian armed forces and Ukrainian forces. While there are differences in the sources and sometimes scope of the laws of war that apply to a non-international armed conflict and an international one, international humanitarian law is designed mainly to protect civilians and other non-combatants from the hazards of all forms of armed conflict, and applicable customary international humanitarian law reflects the large convergence of the two bodies of law that has taken place.

The conflict between the separatists—a non-state armed force—and Ukrainian forces is primarily a non-international armed conflict, which falls within the remit of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Protocol II relating to non-international armed conflicts, to which Ukraine is also a party. Protocol II provides further guidance on the fundamental guarantees for individuals during non-international conflicts to what is provided for in Common Article 3.[19]

Persons held by any party in connection with the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine are protected under international human rights and international humanitarian law. In both of these bodies of law, the ban on torture and other ill-treatment is one of the most fundamental prohibitions. Both Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Protocol II require that anyone in the custody of a party to the conflict be protected against “violence to life of persons,” in particular murder, mutilation, and torture.[20] The provisions also bar “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” Similarly, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)[21] and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)[22] specifically bar torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.[23]

Torture is also a war crime under international humanitarian law in all conflicts.[24] Both international human rights law and international humanitarian law require that cases of torture and other ill-treatment be investigated, and that, when the evidence warrants it, the perpetrators be prosecuted. Detainees must be provided with adequate food, water, clothing, shelter, and medical care.

International humanitarian law acknowledges that during times of armed conflict there may be security grounds for temporary detention of civilians, but arbitrary detention is always prohibited, and parties to an armed conflict are required to ensure a legal basis and framework as well as basic safeguards for the detention of civilians. Grounds for detention must be legitimate and nondiscriminatory. Under customary international humanitarian law, detaining parties must adhere to certain procedures; for example, they are obligated to bring a person arrested on a criminal charge promptly before a judicial authority, and to allow the person to challenge the lawfulness of the detention.[25] Under human rights law, which applies even during armed conflict, persons in the custody of the state are entitled to judicial review of the legality of their detention.[26]

Enforced disappearances are serious crimes under international law and are prohibited at all times under both international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The prohibition also entails a duty to investigate cases of alleged enforced disappearance and prosecute those responsible.[27]An enforced disappearance occurs when someone is deprived of their liberty by agents of the state or persons acting with the state’s authorization, support or acquiescence, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, placing that person outside the protection of the law.[28] Ukraine became a party to the International Convention on Enforced Disappearances on August 14, 2015. The Convention codifies the prohibition on enforced disappearances and, among other things, sets out the obligations of states to prevent, investigate, and prosecute all cases of enforced disappearances.

The ECHR and the ICCPR allow state parties to derogate from certain articles—in other words, to limit certain rights during emergency situations, including an armed conflict. In May 2015, Ukraine derogated from a number of articles in both conventions, including, as relevant to this report, articles relating to the right to liberty and security and fair trial in relation to terrorism suspects.[29] But the treaties also require any restrictions to be necessary, proportionate and non-discriminatory. Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjørn Jagland issued a statement that the derogation “does not mean that Ukraine is no longer bound by the European Convention on Human Rights” and that the European Court of Human Rights will assess in each case whether the derogation is justified.”[30]

Ukrainian law

Ukrainian law categorically prohibits torture.[31]

According to the Ukrainian Criminal Procedure Code, the authorities can detain a suspect for up to 72 hours without official charges, after which a court has to approve detention in a pre-trial detention facility with an official warrant or release the suspect. Detainees have the right to be informed of the allegations or charges against them and to challenge their arrest in court. However, following the conflict in eastern Ukraine, on August 12, 2014, parliament introduced special amendments into Ukraine’s law “on combatting terrorism” extending the period for which suspects accused of terrorism can be detained without charge to 30 days. The decision to detain a person beyond 72 hours lies with law enforcement, and a copy of the “preventative detention warrant,"endorsed by a prosecutor, is sent to a judge with a request to hold a custody hearing, which can take place at any time up to 30 days.[32]This was the subject of the above-mentioned derogations from the ECHR and ICCPR.[33] The potential for a person to be detained for up to 30 days before they are brought before a judge violates the ECHR.While the European Court of Human Rights has yet to rule on this provision, it has held that detention without being brought before a judge for 14 days, even with a derogation, violates the convention.The Court, acknowledging there was a legitimate state of emergency and derogation, held “it cannot accept that it is necessary to hold a suspect for fourteen days without judicial intervention.” It noted that the period was exceptionally long, and leaves detainees vulnerable to arbitrary detention and torture.[34]

Pre-trial detention is allowed only in pre-trial detention centers belonging to the State Penitentiary Service and disciplinary cells of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In “certain cases,” the law permits short-term detention of suspects “in temporary detention facilities for the purpose of conducting investigative activities.[35] According to article 38 of the Ukrainian Criminal Procedures Code, bodies with investigative authority in Ukraine are the National Police (part of the Ministry of Interior system), the SBU, the Tax Police (part of the State Fiscal Service), and the State Investigation Bureau.[36] In reality, only the Ministry of Interior and the SBU operate temporary detention facilities. They are governed according to internal orders and guidelines.

Ukraine’s SBU stated in a letter to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that it has only one such facility, located in Kyiv.[37] According to the SBU’s Internal Guidelines on Temporary Detention Facilities, the maximum period of detention in this facility should not exceed 10 days.[38] Ukrainian law allows SBU officials to bring in people for questioning, but a questioning session can last no longer than eight hours per day and no investigative activities, including questioning, can be carried out from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.[39]

Pre-trial detention in other remand facilities cannot exceed six months for minor crimes and up to 12 months for serious crimes, among them those that are terrorism-related.[40]

III. Enforced Disappearances, Arbitrary Detentions, and Torture by Members of the Ukrainian Authorities and Paramilitaries

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch investigated nine cases in which members of the Ukrainian authorities and paramilitaries held civilians in prolonged, secret captivity. Three of these—the most recent and egregious—are detailed below. Details of two others are withheld at the request of the victims, who fear retaliation. The remaining four are not detailed here as they pertain to arbitrary detentions that concluded prior to spring 2015.[41]

In most of the nine cases, pro-government forces, including members of so-called volunteer battalions, detained the individuals and handed them over to the SBU, which eventually moved them into the regular criminal justice system; some were later exchanged for persons held by separatists and others were released without trial.

In the three cases summarized in detail below, the SBU went on to hold these individuals from between six weeks and 15 months, without allowing them to see a lawyer or have any contact with the outside world. All of the individuals were suspected of involvement in pro-separatist activities.

The captivity involved periods during which they were forcibly disappeared or subjected to prolonged incommunicado detention. Most interviewees said they were tortured before their transfer to SBU’s facilities. Several also alleged that after being transferred to SBU premises they were beaten, subjected to electric shocks, and threatened with rape, execution, and retaliation against family members.

Most of the captives held by the Ukrainian authorities were eventually brought before a judge and moved into the regular criminal justice system.[42] However, they did not stand trial but were at some point released as part of prisoner exchanges between the warring sides. In these cases a judge released them on their own recognizance and an undertaking not to leave their place of permanent residence, pending the investigation. This arrangement enabled the authorities to remove them from state custody for the purpose of exchange; however, the individuals would face arrest upon return to government-controlled territory.

Those interviewed by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have described the SBU buildings in Kharkiv, Kramatorsk, Izyum, and Mariupol where they were held in terms that indicate these were places of unlawful, unacknowledged detention. There are well-founded concerns that some persons continue to be victims of enforced disappearances and are being detained at the Kharkiv SBU compound. Two of those who were held for months at the Kharkiv SBU separately made lists of 16 other individuals (15 males and one female) who were still held there at the time of their release earlier this year. Researchers interviewed the two former detainees, Kostyantyn Beskorovaynyi and Artem (real name withheld), separately, and their stories are detailed below.[43] They separately shared their lists with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The names on the two lists of 16 people are identical.

Beskorovaynyi and Artem also provided some basic details regarding the circumstances of detention for the individuals on their lists. Another individual, who was held in the same facility at the same time as Beskorovaynyi and Artem, but who asked for his case not to be included in this report, provided the same list of inmates to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and shared additional details regarding the circumstances of detention for the individuals on the list.[44] The UN report On the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine 15 February to 16 May 2016 described a similar situation based on the research findings by members of OHCHR, stating that “as of March 2016, OHCHR was aware of the names of 15 men and one woman disappeared in Kharkiv SBU.”[45]

In early June 2016, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch sent a letter of inquiry to the SBU with regard to allegations of the enforced disappearances of individuals, in particular by members of the SBU on SBU premises in Kharkiv, Kramatorsk, Izyum, and Mariupol. The letter included specific questions on the cases of Beskorovaynyi and Artem documented in this section of the report. In their official response, dated June 17, 2016, SBU authorities denied operating any detention facilities with the exception of the temporary detention center in Kyiv (in respect of which no allegations of unacknowledged detention have come to Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch’s attention). They also stated that the SBU had never detained or investigated Beskorovaynyi and had no information about his case. The response did not address the discrepancy between the initial public acknowledgement by an SBU spokesperson of the arrest of a man whose details uniquely match Beskorovaynyi’s and the subsequent denial. As regards Artem, the response states that he has been under investigation by the SBU and was on remand between February 7 and March 12, 2015, and released thereafter.[46]

A delegation from the UN Subcommittee for Prevention of Torture, which began an official visit in Ukraine in May 2016, cut the visit short because the authorities failed to grant them access to some of the detention sites they wanted to visit. This is only the second time since it began its work in 2007 that the Subcommittee has chosen to cut short a country visit. The delegation chief, Malcolm Evans, stated that the team was prevented from visiting "some places where we have heard numerous and serious allegations that people have been detained and where torture or ill-treatment may have occurred."[47]

In response to the Subcommittee announcement, the head of the SBU, VasylyiHrytsak, told the press on May 26: "We are not holding any people in our territorial divisions....I'm convinced we have not violated anything."[48] The subcommittee has not disclosed the locations of the alleged places of detention to which it was denied access, but as the most recent OHCHR’s report specifically mentions Kharkiv SBU as an alleged place of unofficial detention,[49] this facility may have been on the Subcommittee’s list of sites to visit. [50]

The cases detailed below illustrate the unlawful practice of prolonged incommunicado detentions in unofficial prisons on the premises of SBU facilities.

Kostyantyn Beskorovaynyi (locations of detention: Kramatorsk, Izyum, Kharkiv)

Kostyantyn Beskorovaynyi, 59 at time of writing, was an active member of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) and an elected member of the local council in his hometown of Kostyantynivka, where he also worked as a dentist. Kostyantynivka had been under separatist control for several weeks in 2014 until it was retaken by the Ukrainian forces in July 2014.

Beskorovaynyi was the victim of an enforced disappearance, spending 15 months in unacknowledged and unlawful SBU detention in Kramatorsk, Izyum, and Kharkiv, most of it in the Kharkiv SBU building.[51]

Abduction and transfer to Kramatorsk SBU compound

According to Beskorovaynyi, at about 4 p.m. on November 27, 2014, masked men broke into his apartment, violently seized him, and searched his home with no warrant, claiming they had evidence that he planned to poison the local water supply:

Five or six masked men, one of them armed with an AK-47 automatic rifle, broke my door with a sledgehammer and threw me to the ground. They didn’t introduce themselves but accused me of being a terrorist and a separatist. One of them held me down with his foot and occasionally kicked me in the ribcage while the others searched my apartment….[52]


The search completed, they forced Beskorovaynyi into a van with no license plates and tinted windows. Inside, they handcuffed Beskorovaynyi and pulled a bag over his head. After a relatively short drive, they led Beskorovaynyi into a basement. There, his captors gave him a phone and forced him to call his wife and read a prepared statement stating that he had been detained for “speaking at a rally” and for “further clarifications.” In the evening, Beskorovaynyi was subjected to his first interrogation:

A group of four or five masked men questioned me. They were all aged 30-35, based on their voices, and all had local accents, except one. They told me that I was being charged with aiding a terrorist organisation but did not present any documents. Then, one of them punched me in the face and threatened to send “bearded fellows from Right Sector” to my wife and daughter … They struck me with something heavy, and threatened to rape and shoot me if I didn’t confess.[53]


Beskorovaynyi became so ill during the interrogation that his captors took him to a cell where two medical workers gave him an injection, which helped stabilize his condition. Then, he said, he was ready to confess to anything. His interrogators dictated a confession to him that he had allegedly planned to poison the local water supply and that he consented to work as an SBU informer. They then made him read it aloud on camera.

The next day, he overheard his wife talking with a guard outside, asking if he was there and begging to pass him some food and clothes. The guard claimed that Beskorovaynyi was “not there.” Later his relatives told him, and confirmed to our researchers, that the facility was in fact the SBU building in Kramatorsk, some 35 kilometers from Kostyantynivka.[54]

Transfer to Izyum and Kharkiv

Several days later on December 3, several armed men in masks drove Beskorovaynyi to a different building, where he spent the night in the basement. The next morning, armed personnel again put him in a vehicle that already held two other detainees, and put a bag over his head.[55] As they drove away, Beskorovaynyi managed to make out a sign for the Izyum bus station, leading him to believe he had spent the night at the Izyum SBU building.

After what seemed like a couple of hours, the vehicle stopped in a city. The guards took Beskorovaynyi and the two other captives into a building and to a cell where he learned from one of the inmates that he was in the Kharkiv SBU building. The inmate told Beskorovaynyi he recognized the building because he had done an internship in it.

Almost 15 months in Kharkiv SBU

Beskorovaynyi was held in Kkarkiv for nearly 15 months. Until his release in February 2016, the SBU held Beskorovaynyi on the second floor of the facility, moving him to a different cell five times. The total number of inmates in the facility ranged from around 70 when he first arrived to 17, including himself, at the time of his release.[56] Inmates were held in eight cells, the first four of which held up to around 15 detainees, while the other four were used for smaller groups of up to three people.[57] Between December 2014 and May 2015 Beskorovaynyi never left his cell for fresh air or exercise. From May 2015 onwards guards began to allow inmates a brief a walk in a small fenced yard twice a month.

Because the facility is small, inmates from different cells had ample opportunity to get to know one another, including during walks and doing kitchen duty. Beskorovaynyi and Artem met while detained in the SBU premises in Kharkiv.[58]

When Beskorovaynyi arrived at the facility, it was full. The inmates had to cook meals for around 70 people. The guards would grumble that they were paying for prisoners’ food “out of their own pockets.” The guards frequently told Beskorovaynyi and other inmates that “you don’t exist” and “we don’t even have a budget for you.”[59]

At least twice during his 15 months in custody—in February and October 2015—unidentified SBU officials said he would be exchanged soon, though this never happened.

In the first half of February 2015, the guards rounded up all the inmates, told them to gather their belongings and put the bags over their heads. Then the guards led them several floors upstairs and told them to keep quiet. When they returned to their cells several hours later, the detainees found that their cells had been cleaned and appeared uninhabited. Beskorovaynyi maintains that he overheard the guards talking about representatives of an international organization having visited the facility on that day.[60]

Release

Several days before his release in February 2016, Beskorovaynyi was instructed by a short, bespectacled investigator who introduced himself as Andrei to remain discreet about his time at the SBU:

‘Andrei’ told me that I had to tell everyone that I had left Kostyantynivka and gone into hiding for 15 months for personal reasons. He threatened to come for me and my family, even to send the Right Sector to get us in case I talk about what really happened.[61]


On February 24, 2016, Andrei told Beskorovaynyi that, although prisoner exchanges had stopped, the authorities were ready to let him go on the condition that he repeated his “confession” on camera. Beskorovaynyi did as he was told. He was again warned not to talk about his captivity. The following day he was given 200 UAH (just over US$7) for transport, driven to a bus station in Kharkiv, and made to buy a ticket home.[62]

Official denial of Kostyantyn Beskorovaynyi’s detention

During Beskorovaynyi’s detention, his family members repeatedly approached various Ukrainian authorities for information about his fate and whereabouts. They were consistently told that the authorities were not holding Kostyantyn Beskorovaynyi, although on at least one instance the SBU indirectly acknowledged his detention. The denial of Beskorovaynyi’s detention, and the repeated refusal to provide information on his whereabouts and fate, renders his arbitrary detention an enforced disappearance.

On December 19, 2014, Markiyan Lubkivskiy, the then-SBU spokesperson, said at a press briefing that counter-intelligence services and the SBU had detained an “insane Communist council member” from Kostyantynivka who had planned “terrorist attacks.”[63] There is little doubt Lubkivskiy was referring to Beskorovaynyi even though he did not name him; according to the records of Kostyantynivka town council, which were examined as part of this research, he was the only male Communist Party member on the town council at that time.

Nonetheless, the authorities officially denied to Beskorovaynyi’s family on repeated occasions that they were holding him. On the day of Beskorovaynyi’s detention, his wife filed a complaint with the local police authorities about his abduction by a group of unknown men. She also filed inquiries with several other government agencies. The reply she received from the SBU in Kharkiv, dated December 28, 2015, stated that in 2014-2015 Beskorovaynyi was not in official custody, nor under any investigation, nor a suspect in any criminal case.[64]

In June 2016 Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch received similar information in reply to their joint letter of inquiry, which stated that, as of June 17, 2016, the central SBU directorate had no information about Beskorovaynyi’s detention or any criminal allegations against him.[65]

Two criminal investigations were opened following Beskorovaynyi’s wife’s complaints: one into illegal deprivation of liberty and the other into abuse of official authority by law enforcement agencies. On April 13, 2016, the prosecutor's office in Kostyantynivkainformed Beskorovaynyi’s wife that the two investigations had been merged into one and transferred to the Military Prosecutor's Office for the Donetsk region.[66] She is not aware of any subsequent progress in the case.

Beskorovaynyi received several warnings to keep silent about his ordeal. On March 4, two men who introduced themselves as investigators from the local police precinct visited him at home. They insisted on questioning him and taking photos. He let them photograph him and said he would come to the police station the next day to provide an official statement. On March 5, at the police precinct, he told his full story to three law enforcement officials. They warned him that trying to sue the Ukrainian authorities could get him in trouble and tried to convince him to sign and backdate to the first day of his detention a letter of resignation from his job at the local hospital. Beskorovaynyi refused to sign it and believes that the officials wanted the ongoing investigations closed and planned to use the letter as evidence that he went missing of his own free will.[67]

At time of writing, Beskorovaynyi is trying to get reinstated in his job and to have his allegations officially investigated.

Artem (real name withheld; locations of detention: Mariupol, Kharkiv)

Artem, a pro-separatist activist in Mariupol, was forcibly disappeared while walking along a street by masked armed men on January 28, 2015. Artem spent the next 11 days detained in a basement, where he says he was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment. He was then handed over to the SBU. At this point, his detention was formally recognized and he was officially charged with aiding a terrorist organization.[68] After 31 days in pre-trial detention, a judge ordered his release from custody under his own recognizance. Notably, the request to release him came from the SBU. However, instead of releasing him, SBU officials transferred Artem to the Kharkiv SBU compound, where he was held incommunicado for another 11 months before being exchanged as part of a “prisoner swap” in February 2016.[69]

Detention and torture

Artem said his captors stopped him on 50-richnaya Oktyabrya street in Mariupol, pulled a plastic bag over his head, threw him into the back of a car, and brought him to the basement of a building. Months later, when Artem described this building to fellow detainees in Kharkiv, some of them said they had also been held and tortured there and identified it as the sports school near Soyuz cinema, which was used as a base by the volunteer battalion Azov.

According to Artem, his captors handcuffed him for long periods of time to a metal rod hanging from the ceiling in the basement and hit him repeatedly on his head and stomach, demanding that he tell them “everything.” The beating sessions continued for two days with short intervals in between. Artem’s torturers also instructed the guards to keep him from sleeping at night.

Artem provided a detailed description of some of the worst moments of his ordeal:

On the third day … they brought two stripped electric wires and ran electricity on my stomach. I was convulsing so heavily that they had to chain me to a wooden ladder, but it broke from my convulsions. Then they turned me over and applied the wires to my back. After I lost consciousness several times, they pulled down my pants and applied the wires to my genitals.... They wanted to know something about a handgun but I told them that I’d never held a weapon in my entire life. They threatened to cut my thumb and then placed a wet mop on my face and started pouring water on it. I felt like I was drowning. There was this official in charge, everyone called him Polkovnik [“colonel” in Russian]. [He] wanted to know about my family and when I said my son was just six years of age, he shouted to the others, “Bring him here, I’ll tear the kid apart in front of him!” After this I told them I’ll confess to anything, do anything they want.[70]


Transfer to Mariupol SBU and to remand prison

On February 7, the guards moved Artem from the basement to a makeshift cell in the same building, where he was allowed to take the bag off his head for the first time. Several hours later, two officers who said they were from the SBU told Artem that they had been looking for him for six days and instructed the guards not to touch him. They took Artem to the SBU building in Mariupol, where he spent two days in incommunicado detention. On February 9, SBU officials informed Artem that the Zhovtnevyi court in Mariupol had ordered his pre-trial detention for 60 days on charges of “aiding a terrorist organization.” On the same day, Artem was transferred to a pre-trial detention center in Kamensk. Upon arrival, Artem was examined by medical personnel, as the law requires, who noticed multiple bruises and abrasions on his body. A law enforcement official present during the examination told Artem: “It’s impossible to find the people who did this to you because of the [chaotic] situation in town, and it’s in your best interests to have them recorded as injuries during your arrest.” Artem agreed to do as he was told.[71]

Transfer to Kharkiv SBU compound

On March 12, Artem was brought before a judge who considered and approved a request submitted by an SBU investigator to lift Artem’s remand.[72] However, on March 13, instead of being released, Artem was again forcibly disappeared, together with nine other inmates, and held at the SBU compound in Kharkiv. He was not presented with any official paperwork, nor given any explanation.

Artem spent the next 11 months forcibly disappeared—in unacknowledged detention—on the premises of the SBU compound in Kharkiv and was finally exchanged for detainees held by the separatist forces on February 20, 2016.

He described his cell at the SBU compound in Kharkiv:

The cell was about eight by eight meters with bars on the windows and a plastic sheet behind the bars so we could not see anything on the street. There were 11 other people in the cell when I arrived. I stayed there until 20 February 2016. They fed us three times per day, two spoons of oats and a tiny slice of bread with tea. On Saturdays and Sundays for breakfast we had only tea.... At the end of August 2015, the canteen refused to cook for us, so we started doing it on our own... They allowed doctors in only when something was very urgent. But once, when a person had a stroke and half of his body was paralyzed, they did not call a doctor. A person with diabetes was given insulin only once every two weeks. If there were some altercations between us, the guards used pepper-spray in the cells. They did not allow us to contact our relatives or anyone else.[73]


Artem claims he met Kostyantyn Beskorovaynyi at the SBU compound in Kharkiv and gave a similar description of the conditions there.[74]

Once in the DNR-controlled territory, Artem underwent a forensic medical examination. His medical records documented visible scars from deep wounds on his wrists, consistent with his claims of being suspended by handcuffs for a long period of time, and a broken tooth.[75] These scars were visible during his interview with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch researchers.

Artem has not filed any complaints with the Ukrainian authorities regarding his enforced disappearance and ill-treatment due to fear of reprisals against his wife and child, who are still in Mariupol. For the same reason, he is afraid to contact his wife and does not know if she has contacted any official agencies about his fate and whereabouts.

The official response received by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch from the SBU and dated June 17, 2016, stated he has been under investigation by the SBU and was on remand between February 7 and March 12, 2015 and released thereafter.[76]
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 37523
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Nazi Terrorists in Ukraine

Postby admin » Wed Oct 09, 2024 10:44 pm

Part 2 of 2

Vadim (real name withheld two unofficial places of detention in government-controlled territory, exact locations unknown)

Pro-Kyiv forces forcibly disappeared Vadim, 39, a real estate agent from Donetsk, in April 2015 next to government-controlled Kurakhove. He spent around six weeks in unacknowledged detention, the first three days on the premises of an alleged base of Right Sector and then on the premises of an alleged SBU base in an unknown location. His interrogators subjected Vadim to various forms of torture.[77]

Detention at checkpoint and transfer to alleged Right Sector base

On the morning of April 9, 2015, Vadim boarded a Donetsk-bound shuttle bus in government-controlled Slovyansk, where he had spent the previous day on real estate business. At the Georgievsky checkpoint near Kurakhove, checkpoint personnel collected all the passengers’ passports, which is routine checkpoint procedure. A gunman holding Vadim’s passport ordered Vadim to get off the bus with his belongings and instructed the driver to proceed without him.[78]

Three men in camouflaged uniforms without insignia led Vadim into a small cabin at the checkpoint, took away his phone, and searched him thoroughly. When going through his papers, they found a badge identifying him as one of the organizers of the May 2014 separatist referendum in Donetsk. They tied his hands behind his back with his own belt, pulled a bag over his head, pushed him to his knees, called him a “separatist thug,” and questioned him about his connections in Slovyansk. They threw him into the back seat of a car and drove off with him sandwiched between two gunmen.

According to Vadim, after a two-hour drive his captors dragged him out of the vehicle and led him through a gate with a checkpoint next to it. They put Vadim next to a wall in a yard. One of the gunmen punched him hard in his lower back, saying, “Hello from Pumpkin!”[79] At that point, Vadim realized that the detention was related to his acquaintance Marina (not her real name), or “Pumpkin,” who was affiliated with the DNR intelligence service and whose sister, Natalia (not her real name), he was courting at the time. Vadim told Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that several weeks earlier Natalia had hinted to him that any military activity by the Ukrainian forces he saw during his travels in Ukrainian government-controlled territory would be of interest to her sister. He called Natalia on his way to Slovyansk on April 8 and told her that he had seen several Ukrainian tanks and personnel carriers on the road.

Torture at alleged Right Sector base

According to Vadim, his captors handed him over to other Ukrainian gunmen who took him to a basement and interrogated him for hours, asking about his connections with Pumpkin and some other people whose names did not sound familiar. They beat him with sticks on his arms, legs, and back, kicked and punched him, and tortured him with electric shocks. Twenty grams of gold, which he had bought to make a ring, had been found on him, along with some cash a client had paid him in Slovyansk, and the torturers wanted to know where he had his “cache” with money and gold supposedly used for separatist activities. Vadim described his torture in detail:

They attached two stripped wires to my fingers and turned a knob on some kind of device.... There were crackling sounds and electric current went through me. I was howling from pain.… The bag [on my head] was blocking my vision, so I could not see them. They kept asking their questions. One of them demanded I kneel and sing the Ukrainian anthem.... They put out their cigarettes on my back and torso. It must’ve gone on for hours. I lost count of time. Finally, they left me alone, handcuffed to a bar on the wall. In the morning, a guard came up to me, un-cuffed me, gave me some water, and took me to the toilet. He asked if I could move my left hand. I tried and it was clear two fingers were broken.… Then, it started all over again. Judging by their voices, they were different people. They un-cuffed me from the bar, threw me to the floor and kicked me. Then, they cuffed me again and gave me shocks, then they beat me again.[80]


According to Vadim, during a break in the interrogation, a sympathetic guard un-cuffed one of his hands, allowed him to remove the bag, gave him a cigarette, and left him alone for a while. He saw that there was a table in the room, close to where he was tied to the bar, with a sheaf of papers on it. Stretching his free hand, he could look at some of the papers, and realized that his captors had a full print-out of his April 8 telephone conversation with Natalia and what appeared to be his phone billing for a month, with a long list of numbers and names of people who had called him and whom he had called. He recognized some of the names his torturers were inquiring about and understood that they were among the individuals he had been in touch with on real estate business. “As a realtor, I talk to lots of people but I don’t remember their full names, just the properties and their [first] names. So naturally, the interrogators called out those names and said they were separatist something or other, and I had no idea who those people were before seeing that paper,” he said.[81]

According to Vadim, towards the end of his second day of detention, the guards took him to a small, dark shed. He had to crawl to get inside. The ceiling was so low he could not stand straight. The shed had a partition in the middle, and there was another captive behind it. Vadim’s section of the shed had a bed in it, a slop bucket, and a pail of water. The man behind the partition told Vadim that he had been there for two months already and that, from what he could gather from overheard snatches of conversations between guards, they were being held in a Right Sector compound.

Transfer to an unknown location

The next day, Vadim and the other inmate were given some bread. Then, two gunmen came for Vadim, telling him to put the bag back on and to crawl out of the shed with his hands behind his head. They said they were transferring him “to another place,” and he “would live” provided he was “on his best behavior.”[82]

They hid Vadim on the back seat of a car and drove for about 90 minutes. They brought him to a compound with lots of armed servicemen on the premises and handed him over to the personnel based there. Vadim was marched into a basement where he spent the next several weeks, handcuffed to the radiator by one hand. According to Vadim, the basement was bare, but he talked one of the guards into giving him a woolen blanket to sleep on. Guards took him to interrogations several times, and the interrogators beat him but were not as “vicious” as at his first place of confinement. They also asked him about his trip to Slovyansk, his connection to Pumpkin, his phone conversation with Natalia, his alleged collaborators, and where he was “hiding money and weapons.”[83] His interrogators used an electric shock device on him once but mainly resorted to kicks and punches.

Vadim's head was covered by a bag during interrogations and whenever the guards or other servicemen entered his cell. Often he heard screams of other prisoners under interrogation. Sometimes the guards brought food to him twice a day, sometimes only once a day, and on several occasions they left him without any food for a couple of days. Throughout his six-week confinement, despite his numerous requests, Vadim had only two opportunities to shower and shave. Based on snatches of conversations of the guards and the interrogators he overheard, Vadim believed that he was held in an SBU compound.

According to Vadim, in the early morning of what proved to be the last day of his detention, May 22, 2015, three servicemen entered his cell. One of them, whom Vadim said seemed more senior, had a video camera. He told Vadim to take off the bag and say on camera that he had been “recruited by Natalia, the sister of Marina, code name Pumpkin, to carry out intelligence activities in Ukraine’s territory” and to call on the Ukrainian authorities to hold them both to account.[84] The more senior servicemen indicated that Vadim would be released if he cooperated. Vadim did precisely as asked. The more senior serviceman turned off the camera and instructed Vadim to put the bag back on. Then, the servicemen led him out of the building, hid him on the back seat of a car, and drove for a while, going through several checkpoints. Finally, they stopped and ordered Vadim to get out of the vehicle, lie flat on the ground with his face down and count to a hundred before getting up. They told him they had put 200 UAH (just over US$7) and his passport in his pocket so that he could make his way home.

A few minutes after they left, Vadim got up, finding himself next to a major road, and managed to flag a taxi. The driver told him it was nearly 8 a.m. on May 22 and he was close to Kurakhove. On May 23, he returned to Donetsk, where he was promptly detained by DNR security services on suspicion of having been recruited by Ukraine’s SBU.

IV. Disappearances, Incommunicado Detention, Ill-treatment and Torture in Separatist-Controlled Areas

Overview


Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch documented nine cases in which Russia-backed separatists held civilians in arbitrary, incommunicado detention for weeks or months without charge and, in most cases, subjected them to ill-treatment. Six of these cases are documented below.[85]

Four of the six individuals were detained in 2015 and two in early 2016. At the end of June 2016, two of the six individuals remained in custody, awaiting trial. The others were released, most of them in exchange for individuals held by Ukrainian authorities.

De facto authorities accused the six of, variously, spying for the Ukrainian government, possessing weapons, and membership of pro-Ukrainian “extremist” organizations.

The facilities where de facto authorities held these individuals include: in Donetsk, the former SBU building currently used by DNR defense structures; the headquarters of what is known as the Ministry of State Security (in the Russian abbreviation, MGB) in the former location of the Donetsk Administrative Appeals Court; the Donetsk State Financial Inspection office; the Donetsk Tax Inspectorate; and in Luhansk, on the premises of the MGB (formerly the tax inspectorate building) and on the grounds of the local bullet factory.

After the DNR authorities or the LNR authorities finally “charged” the individuals, either on clearly fabricated evidence or without any tangible evidence at all, they were transferred to remand prisons, where some of them were allowed access to a lawyer. At time of writing, two of the six were still detained in the Donetsk pre-trial detention facility, awaiting trials that, in the absence of a functional criminal justice system, stand little chance of being fair. One of the six, the leader of a Donetsk-based humanitarian organization, was expelled from DNR-controlled territory. Another was released without charge after over two months of detention. Two others were released by LNR as part of “prisoner exchange” with the Ukrainian government.

Lack of access for independent monitors

In its most recent Ukraine report, OHCHR spoke of new allegations of killings, arbitrary detention and torture in the areas controlled by DNR and LNR and deplored the de facto authorities’ refusal to grant OHCHR “access to places of deprivation of liberty on the territories they control.”[86]

Representatives of other international organizations, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, also expressed to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch their regrets about not having access to places of detention in DNR- and LNR-controlled territories. Nils Muižnieks, the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, noted in his report of a visit in March 2016 that relevant interlocutors in Donetsk told him that the “‘local legislation’ does not at present allow for this kind of supervision of the places of detention.”[87] As of the end of June 2016, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also had no access to places of detention in DNR and LNR.

Local regulations governing the detention of criminal suspects in DNR and LNR

The de facto authorities in DNR have issued regulations that delegate powers of detention on a variety of grounds to locally-created structures. For example, a special DNR cabinet decree allows the MGB to hold individuals for up to 30 days without charge.[88] In some of the cases documented below, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reviewed materials—letters from the prosecutor’s office and the like—that referred specifically to DNR Cabinet Decree #34, of August 8, 2014, “On emergency measures aimed at protecting the public from banditry and other manifestations of organized crime.”[89] Also, a DNR law “On the Ministry of State Security” states that this agency may administratively detain people who try to enter “specially protected territories with secure facilities, restricted [areas] and other protected objects, and check identity papers, demand explanations, conduct a body search, check and confiscate personal belongings and documents.”[90]

In LNR, the work of security services is regulated by a special decree entitled “Temporary Regimen for the Work of State Security Agencies in the Luhansk People’s Republic,” issued by the de facto head of the self-proclaimed republic, which gives the local MGB overwhelmingly broad powers and authority.[91]

Numerous interlocutors in the DNR told Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that the MGB is “the most powerful and the most feared organization,” which “operates without any checks and balances.”[92] Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch heard a similar assessment of LNR’s MGB from residents of Luhansk.[93]

Abuses in DNR

Yuri (real name withheld; location of detention: Donetsk)


Yuri, a 23-year-old blogger, arrived in Makiivka from Kyiv on December 26, 2015 to spend the winter holidays with his father and mother. A former resident of Makiivka, Yuri had moved to Kyiv in 2014, as the conflict was beginning, to continue his higher education there. MGB servicemen detained him on January 4, 2016 at his parents’ apartment in Makiivka. He spent the next two months in incommunicado detention at the MGB headquarters in Donetsk and in early March was “charged” with illegal possession of weapons, based on apparently fabricated evidence. As of the end of June 2016, he was being held in Donetsk remand prison, pending “trial.” He faces up to four years of imprisonment.[94]

Yuri’s father told Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch researchers that his son was home alone when three MGB officers came for him at around 3 p.m. on January 4:

My wife returned home at around 3:30 or 4 p.m. and saw our desktop computer in the hall, next to the door. She entered the living room, and there was our son with three armed servicemen. One was in fatigues, his face concealed by a black mask. The other two were in civilian clothing. Our son’s t-shirt was torn and his face bruised. The servicemen said they were from the MGB. They neither provided any form of identification nor gave their names. They said that they came to take Yuri to their quarters for a conversation.[95]


According to Yuri’s father, MBG officers searched the apartment using two neighbors as witnesses to the search. Yuri’s father arrived at around 5 p.m. when the search was almost over. He and his wife signed a search protocol which indicated that the officers were removing their family desktop computer, Yuri’s cell phone, and several Ukrainian flags Yuri kept in the apartment. The officials did not provide a copy of the protocol. They said that the flags were “bad news” and escorted Yuri downstairs. His mother begged them to allow her to accompany her son, but the officers refused.[96]

Yuri’s parents followed the MGB officials to Donetsk in another car, until the MGB vehicle entered the gates of the MGB headquarters in central Donetsk.

At around 7 p.m., they saw their son being led across the yard by two armed officials. Yuri was handcuffed and a dark hood covered his head. The parents asked the guard at the gate for information. He eventually told them that they should leave because their son would be “held in custody for the next three days.”

Three days later, MGB officers told the parents they were planning to hold Yuri for another week. They allowed food parcels but provided no information as to the grounds for Yuri’s detention. On January 11, his parents filed a petition with the DNR prosecutor’s office asking for an inquiry into the detention of their son. They also met with a representative of the DNR ombudsperson’s office who told them the ombudsperson could not be of any help in this case as “the laws of wartime allowed the MGB to hold people without charge for one month or even up to two if necessary.”

Yuri’s parents continued to visit MGB headquarters every three days, bringing food parcels for their son and pleading for information. They repeatedly asked MGB officials to let them get a lawyer for their son but their requests were denied, as were their requests to see him.

On February 11, they received a letter from the DNR prosecutor’s office saying that Yuri had been detained by the MGB “on suspicion of affiliation with an extremist organization.”[97] The parents asked MGB officials to confirm this, but they refused to provide any information.

Finally, on February 23, Yuri’s parents received a phone call from an MGB investigator who said that Yuri was suspected of being a member of Svoboda party (a right-wing party registered in Ukraine) and of unlawful possession of weapons. The investigator explained that when they had searched Yuri upon his arrival at MGB headquarters they found two hand grenades in his jacket pocket, which he had supposedly brought from Kyiv. He also emphasized that Yuri had confessed to the possession of the grenades.[98]

According to his parents, Yuri was wearing a t-shirt at home, and he put on his jacket only when leaving the apartment with MGB officials after the search, during which no weapons were found. As the grenades were supposedly “found” in the pocket of that jacket, and since it is very unlikely that Yuri would have chosen to wear a jacket to MGB headquarters if it had grenades in the pocket, the MGB’s version of events seems highly questionable. The fact that Yuri confessed to the possession of those grenades gives grounds for concern that the confession may have been coerced under duress, for example through threats or even torture.

On March 2 or 3, the de facto authorities brought charges against Yuri based on his written confession and the supposed physical evidence, i.e. the two grenades, and transferred him to the Donetsk remand prison. Once registered there, Yuri finally got access to a lawyer hired by his parents. The lawyer told the parents that the authorities dropped the charge of membership in an extremist organization and Yuri would go on trial solely for possession of weapons. She also confirmed that Yuri had signed a confession of weapons possession and was not planning to withdraw it. Despite numerous requests by Yuri and his parents, the prison officials have not allowed a family visit. At time of writing, Yuri’s trial was scheduled for later in the summer at the Makiivka court.[99]

Igor Kozlovsky (location of detention: Donetsk)

Igor Kozlovsky, 63, spent a month in incommunicado detention following his arbitrary detention on January 27, 2016 and is currently facing charges of illegal weapons possession and, possibly, of espionage.[100] Before his arrest he taught anthropology and humanities at Donetsk University.

Dr. Kozlovsky was known for his pro-Ukrainian views and for having been an active participant in the Donetsk ecumenical prayer marathon for united Ukraine in 2014. At the time of his detention, Dr. Kozlovsky was working on an article about the influence of the armed conflict on religious communities in separatist-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine, with a particular focus on the persecution and consequent exodus of minority groups.

On January 27, 2016 between 2 and 3 p.m., MGB personnel surrounded Kozovsky near his apartment building in Donetsk, threw him into a jeep, and drove off. According to eyewitnesses, six officers stayed behind and forcibly entered Kozlovsky’s apartment.

Dr. Kozlovsky’s son, Svyatoslav (born 1979), who has severe and multiple disabilities, including Down Syndrome and physical paralysis, was alone when MGB personnel entered the apartment. According to Dr. Kozlovsky’s spouse, Valentina Kozlovskaya, Svyatoslav was unable to move and may not have been able to fully understand what was happening. He still experiences trauma and often recalls how “bad men came and made noise.”[101]

Without any regard for Svyatoslav, MGB personnel proceeded to search the apartment. Dr. Kozlovsky’s spouse, who was in Kyiv on business, eventually became worried that Dr. Kozlovsky was not answering her phone calls and called a distant relative, asking her to check the apartment. MGB personnel were still at the apartment when the relative arrived at around 10 p.m. They let her in and allowed her to attend to Svyatoslav’s health needs. They did not introduce themselves but told the woman that Dr. Kozlovsky had been detained.

Valentina Kozlovskaya filed an inquiry with local police immediately upon her return to Donetsk on the evening of January 28, but police told her that the detention “bore the hallmarks of the MGB” and advised her to speak to the MGB.[102] In the morning she went to the MGB compound, where MGB personnel confirmed that Dr. Kozlovsky was in their custody and informed her that a decision had been made to detain him for 30 days. They provided no information as to the reasons behind the detention and did not allow her to see her husband or pass on food and clothing.

Valentina Kozlovskaya filed an inquiry with the MGB regarding her husband’s detention and the unlawful search (MGB personnel had seized all electronic devices, some of the valuables, and most of the documents kept by the Kozlovskys in the apartment). The next day she also filed a complaint with the office of the DNR ombudsperson. For the next two days she made repeated inquiries with the Dontesk remand prison, hoping that her husband would be transferred there.

She also gave an interview to Russian independent Internet-based Dozhd TV.[103]

On January 31, she went back to the MGB where an MGB officer told her that giving interviews was “a bad idea.” He said Dr. Kozlovsky was still in their custody and was being treated well. He told Valentina Kozlovskaya that Dr. Kozlovsky had been detained on account of his connections with “Ukrainian nationalists” and that he had posted some “problematic” comments on social media. He agreed to accept a parcel with food and clothing for Dr. Kozlovsky. Valentina Kozlovskaya was denied access to her husband for next four weeks, and he was unable to speak to a lawyer.[104]

Dr. Kozlovsky was transferred to a remand prison only on February 26, a month after his detention, and charged with membership in an extremist organization and weapon possession. At this time his wife was able to hire a lawyer to represent him. One of Dr. Kozlovsky’s cellmates had a cell phone, so he managed to contact his wife. He told her the MGB kept him in a basement cell in “awful conditions” with only a mattress on the floor and no other conveniences. The guards brought food to him twice a day and took him to the toilet twice a day. He also said that his leg had been “hurt” and was “healing slowly.” According to his wife, he had been in good health before his detention, with no leg injury, and therefore the injury to his leg could only have occurred during his time in the hands of MGB personnel.

Soon after her husband’s transfer to the remand prison, Valentina Kozlovskaya received her first formal response from the MGB regarding her inquiry. The letter, dated February 26 (the day of Kozlovsky’s transfer) and signed by the “acting minister for state security,” stated that Dr. Kozlovsky “had been arrested by DNR’s state security officials through administrative arrest procedure based on paragraphs 1, 3, and 5 of article one, part one, of the August 8, 2014 Decree by DNR Cabinet ‘On emergency measures to protect the public from banditry and other manifestations of organized crime.’”[105]

On March 11, Valentina Kozlovskaya also received a response from the DNR administration in response to her petition to the head of DNR, which informed her that on January 27 Dr. Kozlovsky had been taken under “administrative arrest” for 30 days “on suspicion of [unspecified] crimes provided for by DNR Criminal Code also indicated that the “administrative arrest had been carried out in line with DNR Cabinet Decree ‘On emergency measures’…” The letter also said that on February 26, when his 30 days of “administrative arrest” were about to expire, Dr. Kozlovsky was charged with unlawful acquisition and/or possession of weapons “under Article 256 of DNR Criminal Code.”[106]

In April 2016, Valentina Kozlovskaya, who maintained correspondence with the DNR prosecutor’s office regarding her husband’s case, received a letter from the prosecutor’s office informing her that the charge of membership in an extremist organization had been dropped but the weapon possession charge remained.[107] In June, when discussing exchanges of prisoners with Ukrainian officials at a meeting of the humanitarian sub-group of the tripartite contact group on Donbass at Minsk, DNR representatives mentioned Igor Kozlovsky, saying he was a Ukrainian “spy” and a “weapons-manufacturer.”[108] It is likely that the DNR authorities continue to hold Dr. Kozlovsky as a bargaining chip for exchange purposes.

As of the end of June, Dr. Kozlovsky remained in the Donetsk remand prison. His wife quit her job to become the sole caregiver for their son.[109]

Marina Cherenkova and Responsible Citizens group

Marina Cherenkova is a leading activist and a founding member of Responsible Citizens, a humanitarian group created by activists in DNR-controlled territory in 2014 to coordinate the distribution of humanitarian aid to civilians affected by the war. Operating out of Donetsk, the group established links with Ukrainian and international aid organizations, which made DNR authorities increasingly suspicious.

In early 2016 the MGB detained and expelled five founding members of Responsible Citizens group—Marina Cherenkova, Enrique Menendez, brothers Evheniy and Dmitry Shibalov, and Olga Kosse—from DNR-controlled territory. While the MGB accused the activists of providing intelligence “to western security services,” none of the five was charged with any crime.[110]

On January 29, 2016, the MGB detained Cherenkova, held her for 24 days, and then expelled her. The other three men were expelled on February 2, right after MGB investigators interrogated them, and Olga Kosse was expelled several days later. [111]

In the evening of January 29, MGB officers took Cherenkova from her home to the MGB headquarters. She managed to send a text message to her colleagues that the MGB was detaining her. For the next three days she was forcibly disappeared, as the MGB held her at their premises but denied she was there. Olga Kosse explained: “After we got [Marina’s] text message, we immediately went to the MGB building but they denied that they were holding her, so we were looking everywhere…”[112]

According to Kosse, on February 2, apparently on MGB orders, Cherenkova called Menendez, the Shibalov brothers, and her, and told them to come to the MGB without providing any additional information:

We needed to know what was going on with Marina, so we all did as we were told. They [MGB officials] brought us to the fourth floor of the building, put me in a room by myself and the others into another room. An investigator who introduced himself as Vadim Vasilyevich took my phone and started going through its contents. He asked me about our international partners, our contacts in DNR, what I think of the conflict. Then, a second investigator, who they called Zampolit [a Soviet term for deputy commander in charge of ideology], started threatening me and accusing me of espionage, conspiracy, of preparing another Maydan [anti-government protests].[113]


In the other room, MGB “investigators” also bombarded Menendez and the Shibalov brothers with questions about their international contacts and accused them of espionage. After about seven hours of interrogation, the investigators told the three that they were being “deported from DNR.” MGB personnel drove the three men to their respective homes, gave them 15 minutes to collect their belongings, then took them to the Oleniivka checkpoint and told them to cross to government-controlled territory and never return to DNR.[114]

Meanwhile, Olga Kosse was allowed to return home. One of the MGB “investigators” told her that Cherenkova had been placed under “administrative arrest” for 30 days and allowed her to pass on to her colleague packages with food and clothing.[115] On February 12, however, when Kosse called the investigator to inquire if she could bring another package to the MGB compound, he agreed to accept the package but told Kosse she would be deported on the same day:

I went to the MGB [compound] with another package for Marina. Then, some men in uniforms with automatic rifles, whom I had never seen before, escorted me home, allowed me to pack my belongings, and drove me to the Oleniivka checkpoint. They didn’t show any documents. At the checkpoint, they ordered me to cross [to the government controlled side] and said I was “on the list” and therefore, should make no attempts to come back.[116]


Cherenkova spent the next 10 days in detention at the MGB compound. On February 22, MGB personnel expelled her from DNR-controlled territory in the same manner as her colleagues. In a statement on Cherenkova’s “deportation,” the MGB emphasized that “as a gesture of good will … before the expiration of her term of administrative arrest and without opening a criminal case against her.”[117] The statement also said that “prompt reaction by Ukraine and US representatives to Cherenkova’s arrest serves to confirm that western security services paid special attention to the activities of Cherenkova and her organization” and that she was “used by foreign security services to undermine the security of the [Donetsk People’s] Republic.”[118]

Responsible Citizens had to discontinue its work despite the considerable humanitarian needs of the population.[119] In April 2016, the group resumed humanitarian aid distribution, but only in government-controlled territory of eastern Ukraine.

Vadim (real name withheld, location of detention: Donetsk)

Vadim is the 39-year-old realtor from Donetsk whose detention and torture ordeal in government-controlled territory is described above. On May 25, 2015, DNR de facto authorities detained him as soon as he returned home following his release by the Ukrainian side, and he spent over two months in incommunicado detention in an unofficial prison maintained by DNR in the former SBU building in central Donetsk, on suspicion of having been recruited by Ukraine’s SBU while in captivity in government-controlled territory. He was released on August 3, 2015. Representatives from the DNR Defense Ministry’s intelligence unit and the MGB were involved with his prolonged arbitrary detention, which included ill-treatment and beatings.[120]

Incommunicado Detention and Torture

On May 24, 2015, an acquaintance of Vadim’s in Donetsk who was affiliated with the intelligence unit of DNR’s Ministry of Defense told him that DNR intelligence officers needed to debrief him the next day, supposedly “a standard procedure for all those released from Ukrainian captivity.”[121] Vadim complied, forgoing a doctor’s appointment to have a thorough check-up and get a medical record of his torture-related injuries.

On May 25, Vadim arrived at the former SBU building in central Donetsk. A DNR intelligence investigator, who introduced himself as “Dmitry,” asked him a few questions about his experience in captivity and told him he would be taken into custody. He provided no reasons behind this decision.

Vadim was locked in a small cell with three other cellmates, one of whom had a phone on him and let Vadim made a quick call to his mother. Immediately afterwards, several armed men ran into the room screaming, “What the … do you think you’re doing?” They kicked Vadim with booted feet and punched him several times.[122]

Although Vadim had no access to a lawyer and was not allowed any contact with the outside world, the guards at the gate of the building accepted food parcels for him from his mother. The cell was approximately 3.5 square meters in size and accommodated up to four inmates. According to Vadim, some of his cellmates would stay there for a few days, others for two or three weeks; one had already been there for several months, since before Vadim’s detention. Among his cellmates were other suspected “spies,” young men caught drunk after curfew, and an elderly man who left his house after dusk without an ID.

For the next month, the guards took Vadim to several interrogations carried out by the same investigator, Dmitry, and several other armed officials in camouflaged uniforms. The interrogators accused Vadim of having been recruited by Ukrainian forces to spy on DNR forces. According to Vadim, one of them, whom the others addressed as Denis, was particularly vicious. He screamed at Vadim, punched him in the head, kicked him, tore a chain with a cross off his neck, and threatened to kill him.

Vadim told our researchers:

I kept asking them to let me undergo a medical check-up. I explained that it was my intention to file a complaint against Ukraine with the European Court of Human Rights and I needed a full medical record of my injuries, but they would not listen.… They kept accusing me of having been recruited as a spy and spotter for Ukraine. ‘Stop spinning your tales! Why would they return your documents and even give you transportation money, if they haven’t recruited you? Why would they let you go at all? You should better confess if you want to live!’ The physical abuse and the psychological pressure were pretty bad.[123]


Towards the end of June, an investigator from the DNR MGB nicknamed Grandpa [Ded in Russian] interviewed Vadim asking him the same questions as the previous interrogators. When Vadim asked how much longer he would be in custody, the investigator yelled, “As long as necessary! Shut your trap!” Vadim mumbled a sarcastic comment, and the investigator threw himself on Vadim, kicking and punching him and threatening to kill him.

On July 31, another detainee with a phone on him moved into Vadim’s cell. Vadim called his mother, the first contact he had with family or loved one for nearly two months. He found out that unidentified armed men in camouflaged uniforms had searched his office following on his detention and seized all the electronic equipment there.

Vadim’s mother also told him that she had promptly filed inquiries about his detention with the DNR ombudsperson’s office, the DNR prosecutor’s office, and the DNR Ministry of State Security. The latter got back to her with a written response, dated July 14, confirming that Vadim “is held at 62 Schors St. in Donetsk without explanation as to the reasons behind [his] detention.” The letter, which is now on file with Human Rights Watch along with other case-related documents, also indicated that the MGB had forwarded the case file to the DNR military prosecutor’s office “for a procedural decision to be made.” Vadim’s mother also wrote to the DNR military prosecutor, enclosing the MGB letter and asking for her son’s release.

Release and aftermath

On the evening of August 1, a female MGB investigator met with Vadim and told him she got his situation “sorted out” and he was free to go. On August 3, Vadim had his check-up at a hospital in Donetsk. By that time his bruises (those inflicted by Ukrainian servicemen and those inflicted by DNR investigators) had cleared up, but an x-ray confirmed that two fingers on his left hand had been fractured in the recent past.[124]

In December 2015, Vadim lodged an application with the European Court on Human Rights alleging arbitrary detention and cruel and degrading treatment by both Ukrainian forces and the de facto DNR authorities. The case is pending.[125]

Abuses in LNR

Anatoly Polyakov (location of detention: Luhansk)


Anatoly Polyakov, 43, a Russian citizen and vocal critic of Vladimir Putin, traveled to Ukraine in 2014 to support the EuroMaydan protests in Kyiv. After the protests ended, he organized anti-war protests in Russia, and in Ukraine participated in a volunteer organization helping civilians affected by the conflict. Unknown individuals seized Polyakov in March 2015 in Luhansk, and he was held in secret detention for more than nine months, during which he was tortured.[126]

Initial detention

Polyakov arrived in Luhansk on March 12, 2015 to facilitate a prisoner exchange between LNR and Ukrainian authorities and organize a transfer of children for medical care to government-controlled territories. He was in LNR at the invitation of representatives of Igor Plotnitski, the de facto head of LNR. On March 14, he was scheduled to meet with Plotnitski but instead was arrested and spent the next nine months in captivity. He told our researchers:

I was heading to my meeting [with Plotnitsky] when someone hit me on the back of the head. I lost consciousness. When I came to, I had a bag on my head, and my hand were handcuffed and locked to a [pipe], and my legs were locked to it by another pair of plastic hand-cuffs, so I could only sit in a crouched position. On that first day, no one talked to me or asked me anything. The next day, interrogators hit me on the head, ears and crotch, talking in Ukrainian, which I don’t speak, and hitting me harder when I didn’t understand.[127]


Initially, Polyakov’s captors told him that they were pro-Ukrainian saboteurs and that they wanted a US$100,000 ransom to release him. They questioned him about his Ukrainian contacts, especially in eastern Ukraine. Polyakov, however, suspected that these men were in fact from LNR security services who resorted to this farce to make him turn over his contacts.[128]

These captors held Polyakov for a month in the basement of an unidentified facility, repeatedly interrogated him and subjected him to vicious beatings and a mock execution. He was often allowed no more than 15-20 seconds in the toilet. At night, his captors removed the cuffs from his legs, and he could sleep on his side while still chained to the pipe by his hands. In the morning, someone would cuff him back in a sitting position.

After about a month a guard told Polyakov that they were going to release him because “people were looking” for him. They put him in a car, drove for several minutes, and threw him out in the street, with the bag still on his head and his hands and legs still cuffed.

Secret detention at bullet factory

Several men who said they were LNR fighters immediately picked up Polyakov. They accused him of being a Ukrainian spy and took him to another basement prison facility where he would later be subjected to torture during interrogations, including beatings and a mock execution:

They told me that I’m an “information soldier” because I participated in the EuroMaydan and accused me of being an enemy because of my protest activities in Russia. They said that I’m against Putin, so I’m a criminal. They made me write a will and then carried out a mock execution. They told me to write a note to my family, then took me out into the yard, I could hear them recharging, then a bullet swished close to my ear. I was deafened by the shot.[129]


Polyakov was not totally blinded by the bag his captors kept on his head most of the time. After his release months later, having spoken to other former LNR prisoners and residents of Luhansk, Polyakov came to a firm conclusion that the basement where he had spent his second month in captivity is located on the premises of the Lenin bullet factory in Luhansk, which is used as a military base by LNR forces.

After Polyakov had spent a month at the bullet factory, Boris Petrenko, deputy head of the MGB investigative agency, told Polyakov he was being charged with espionage and attempted subversion against LNR. Petrenko then took Polyakov to the local MGB headquarters in the former Ukrainian Tax Inspectorate building in Luhansk. There, Petrenko handed Polyakov a “confession” to sign, in which Polyakov was described as working for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, planning “terrorist attacks” in LNR and child kidnappings. After Polyakov refused to sign the documents, he was moved from the MGB premises to a remand prison in Luhansk where he shared a cell with 15 detainees, all of them local residents or separatist fighters accused of looting or petty crimes. Polyakov spent a month there, without being interrogated or subjected to ill-treatment. Then, MGB officers returned for Polyakov and, without any explanation, moved him to a basement cell on the MGB premises. Polyakov described his protracted confinement:

The room was very dusty and dark. Sometimes it got so hot, that I had to lie down next to the door, gasping for a breath of air. They never took me out for a walk. My health severely deteriorated because of the earlier beatings—I had several inflamed wounds, with pus coming out of them, but they would not let me see a doctor. Sometimes they brought visitors and paraded me in front of them—look what we have here, the fifth column, a EuroMaydan fighter!”[130]

On July 29, 2015, his captors briefly transferred Polyakov from the MGB basement back to the Luhansk remand prison and told him that he was to be exchanged. That exchange was suspended, however[131], and they returned Polyakov to the MGB basement for another five months before his release on December 29, 2015, most likely in exchange for some captured pro-Russian separatists.

Mariya Varfolomeeva (location of detention: Luhansk)

Mariya Varfolomeeva, 31, a freelance journalist from Luhansk, was arrested by LNR security personnel in January 2015 and held for 14 months in incommunicado detention, first on the premises of LNR’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, then on the premises of LNR MGB headquarters before being transferred to the Luhansk remand prison on charges of being a member of an illegal armed group. She was released as part of an exchange with the Ukrainian side in March 2016. Varfolomeeva’s captors repeatedly threatened her with beatings and electric shocks, pushed her roughly, manhandled and harassed her.[132]

On January 9, 2015, LNR security officers caught Varfolomeeva photographing a residential building used by separatist fighters in Luhansk. They accused her of being an artillery spotter for Ukraine, forced her into a car, took her to the building occupied by LNR’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, and kept her there for the night. She recounted:

When they first detained me, they took me to the basement of the Interior Ministry. There, the interrogators showed me batons and electric shocker devices and threatened to use them on me if I don’t tell them what they want to hear. They asked who sent me and how long was I working for the Ukrainians. One of them said that he’d love to hit me if not for me being so thin that I could break.[133]


On January 10, Varfolomeeva’s captors moved her to the MGB building in Luhansk (former Tax Inspectorate building). The guards tried to reassure her that “they don’t torture people there,” but in the hall she saw a man escorted from an interrogation, his face “all bloody and bruised.” During the several weeks that she spent in a basement cell, other inmates described to her how they were tortured by MGB officers who applied electric wires to their earlobes, saying in jest they were making a “a call to [president] Obama.”[134]

On March 27, the LNR MGB announced through its website that a “criminal investigation” into Varfolomeeva’s actions was completed and it “fully proved” that she was a member of Right Sector and a spotter for Ukrainian forces. Around that time, MGB personnel told Varfolomeeva she would be offered for exchange. They also filmed her interrogation and provided the video to Russian TV station Lifenews and LNR television.[135]

Varfolomeeva spent the next year in a women’s cell of the Luhansk remand prison. Most of the time, there were no other female detainees, and Varfolomeeva was on her own. During that time, she was allowed no contact with the outside world, though she regularly received parcels with food and clothing from her father. To the best of her knowledge, LNR authorities never transferred her case to a court. Instead, they sent her on several failed exchanges—on July 29 and November 19, 2015, and on February 26, 2016—and finally released her in exchange for one captive held by Ukrainian authorities on March 3, 2016.[136]

Recommendations

To The Government of Ukraine

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch call upon the Ukrainian government to:


• Take immediate steps to end any and all enforced disappearances, including unacknowledged detentions for any period of time and irrespective of who is the detaining body;
• Investigate all allegations of enforced disappearances and bring those responsible for such crimes to justice through fair trials;
• Conduct immediate, effective and impartial investigations of the allegations of unacknowledged detention of individuals at the SBU facilities in Kharkov, Kramatorsk, Mariupol, and Izyum during the whole of the period since the beginning of the conflict in eastern Ukraine in April 2014;
• Take immediate steps to ensure that no individual held by any law enforcement and security agency and other official forces is subjected to torture or other ill-treatment;
• Undertake prompt, thorough and impartial investigations into all well-founded allegations of torture or other ill-treatment, report publicly on the findings of those investigations, and bring all those responsible for violations against detainees to justice through fair proceedings;
• Immediately end all practices of arbitrary detention, including detention by members of paramilitary forces and by members of any government agencies which do not have the authority to hold individuals in custody, detention of individuals outside of officially designated places of detention, and incommunicado detention;
• Investigate all credible allegations of arbitrary detention by forces and agencies under their control; identify and, where evidence permits, prosecute in conformity with international standards of fairness all those implicated in such practices, including law enforcement and military officials who condone, or are complicit in, such practice;
• Suspend officials implicated in any of the above unlawful practices, including commanding officers suspected of condoning or tolerating such practices; prevent these officials from having any further contact with detainees until investigations have been completed; where there is sufficient evidence that these officials have committed a crime under international law or other serious violation of human rights, prosecute them in conformity with fair trial standards;
• Immediately reveal, or promptly establish, the fate and whereabouts of all missing persons, and specifically those who have been allegedly taken into custody or otherwise forcibly disappeared by members of forces under the Ukrainian government’s control;
• Either charge any individual in the custody of the Ukrainian government with an internationally recognized crime, in which case give them immediate access to lawyers of their choice and inform their family accordingly, or immediately release them;
• Introduce and consistently enforce, with immediate effect, a policy of “zero tolerance” of torture throughout the criminal justice system;
• In all remand hearings and other court proceedings, when detainees are brought before a judge, ensure that members of the judiciary and prosecution and government officials are attentive to indications and allegations that prisoners have been subjected to torture or other ill-treatment; if signs of ill-treatment are observed or if such allegations are substantiated by other credible evidence, order prompt, thorough and impartial investigations;
• Ensure that all those involved in military and law-enforcement operations are made fully aware of the provisions of national and international law applicable to their actions and their potential personal and command responsibility for any breaches of these provisions;
• Fully cooperate with the relevant special procedures mechanisms of the UN, specifically the Special Rapporteur on Torture, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances; allow these special procedures mechanisms to undertake visits to Ukraine, issue invitations to their members, and provide access to both official places of detention and other places where unofficial detention of individuals has been alleged;
• Fully cooperate with the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (SPT), established under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; in particular, host and facilitate a repeat visit by its delegates to Ukraine under guarantees of unhindered access to all detention facilities, including those that the subcommittee had been prevented from inspecting on their suspended visit in May 2016, in full conformity with Ukraine’s obligations under this instrument;
• Investigate the allegations of arbitrary detention of individuals for the purpose of “prisoner exchange”, and bring to justice the alleged perpetrators of such practice in proceedings that meet international standards of fairness.

To the Separatist Forces

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch call upon the de facto authorities in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics to:

• Take immediate steps to ensure that no individual in their custody is subjected to torture or other ill-treatment;
• End the alleged practice of arbitrary detention of individuals for the purpose of “prisoner exchange”;
• Prohibit any form of arbitrary detention by members of forces under their control, including detention in secret locations and incommunicado detention;
• Investigate promptly, thoroughly and impartially all allegations of enforced disappearances and incommunicado detention, including in the facilities named in this report, and of torture or other ill-treatment by forces under their control, and ensure that suspected perpetrators are brought to justice through fair trials;
• Suspend persons suspected or accused of crimes involving individuals in their custody from their duties and prevent them from having further contact with detainees during investigations and any further proceedings;
• Ensure that all those involved in military and law enforcement operations are made fully aware of the provisions of international law applicable to their actions and their potential personal and command responsibility for any breaches of these provisions;
• Fully cooperate with the relevant special procedures mechanisms of the UN, specifically the Special Rapporteur on Torture, the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances should they be willing to visit territory and all places of detention, as requested, under the control of the de facto authorities.

To the International Community

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch call on Ukraine’s international partners to:


• Monitor and report on human rights abuses by both parties of the conflict in Ukraine;
• Raise findings and concerns with the Ukrainian authorities at every opportunity, in the relevant bi- and multilateral fora. Ensure that recommendations to all parties are reflected in relevant multilateral decisions and resolutions addressing human rights in Ukraine. In particular, insist on a “zero tolerance” policy with regard to enforced disappearances and incommunicado detention, as well as torture and other ill-treatment by members of military, security, and law enforcement agencies.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch call on the authorities of the Russian Federation to exercise their leverage over the de facto authorities in the DNR and LNR to ensure that disappearances, arbitrary and incommunicado detention, as well as torture and other ill-treatment practices, are stopped immediately and that all alleged perpetrators of such abuses are held accountable.

Acknowledgements

This report was researched and written by Tanya Lokshina, senior researcher with Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division, and a team of experts at Amnesty International.

The report was edited by Rachel Denber, deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia division, who also contributed to the analysis. Aisling Reidy, senior legal advisor, provided legal review and contributed to legal analysis, and Tom Porteous, deputy program director, provided program review. Amnesty International also reviewed the report and contributed to legal analysis.

Production assistance was provided by Anastasia Ovsyannikova, Kathryn Zehr and Anze Mocilnik, associates in the Europe and Central Asia division; and Christina Kovacs, coordinator in the Program Office. Layout and production were undertaken by Grace Choi, publications director; Olivia Hunter, photo and publications associate; and Fitzroy Hepkins, production manager.The cover illustration was designed by Brian Stauffer. The map was designed by John Emerson.

Human Rights Watch wishes to thank Amnesty International for cooperation on this very important project. We also wish to thank witnesses and other individuals who came forward and offered testimony and other information for this report.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 37523
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Nazi Terrorists in Ukraine

Postby admin » Wed Oct 09, 2024 11:00 pm

Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
Five years after the Maidan uprising, anti-Semitism and fascist-inflected ultranationalism are rampant.
Lev Golinkin
The Nation
February 22, 2019
https://www.thenation.com/article/polit ... t-ukraine/

Image
A march of the Azov Battalian, Svoboda, and other far-right radical groups in Kiev, October 14, 2017. (Reuters / Gleb Garanich)

Five years ago, Ukraine’s Maidan uprising ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, to the cheers and support of the West. Politicians and analysts in the United States and Europe not only celebrated the uprising as a triumph of democracy, but denied reports of Maidan’s ultranationalism, smearing those who warned about the dark side of the uprising as Moscow puppets and useful idiots. Freedom was on the march in Ukraine.

Today, increasing reports of far-right violence, ultranationalism, and erosion of basic freedoms are giving the lie to the West’s initial euphoria. There are neo-Nazi pogroms against the Roma, rampant attacks on feminists and LGBT groups, book bans, and state-sponsored glorification of Nazi collaborators.

These stories of Ukraine’s dark nationalism aren’t coming out of Moscow; they’re being filed by Western media, including US-funded Radio Free Europe (RFE); Jewish organizations such as the World Jewish Congress and the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and watchdogs like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Freedom House, which issued a joint report warning that Kiev is losing the monopoly on the use of force in the country as far-right gangs operate with impunity.


Five years after Maidan, the beacon of democracy is looking more like a torchlight march.

A neo-Nazi battalion in the heart of Europe. “Volunteer Ukrainian Unit Includes Nazis.”

—USA Today, March 10, 2015


The DC establishment’s standard defense of Kiev is to point out that Ukraine’s far right has a smaller percentage of seats in the parliament than their counterparts in places like France. That’s a spurious argument: What Ukraine’s far right lacks in polls numbers, it makes up for with things Marine Le Pen could only dream of—paramilitary units and free rein on the streets.

Post-Maidan Ukraine is the world’s only nation to have a neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces. The Azov Battalion was initially formed out of the neo-Nazi gang Patriot of Ukraine. Andriy Biletsky, the gang’s leader who became Azov’s commander, once wrote that Ukraine’s mission is to “lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade…against the Semite-led Untermenschen.” Biletsky is now a deputy in Ukraine’s parliament.

[url]https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Countries/UA/Ukraine_13th_HRMMU_Report_3March2016.pdfIn the fall of 2014, Azov—which is accused of human-rights abuses, including torture, by Human Rights Watch and the United Nations[/url]—was incorporated into Ukraine’s National Guard.

While the group officially denies any neo-Nazi connections, Azov’s nature has been confirmed by multiple Western outlets: The New York Times called the battalion “openly neo-Nazi,” while USA Today, The Daily Beast, The Telegraph, and Haaretz documented group members’ proclivity for swastikas, salutes, and other Nazi symbols, and individual fighters have also acknowledged being neo-Nazis.

In January 2018, Azov rolled out its National Druzhina street patrol unit whose members swore personal fealty to Biletsky and pledged to “restore Ukrainian order” to the streets. The Druzhina quickly distinguished itself by carrying out pogroms against the Roma and LGBT organizations and storming a municipal council. Earlier this year, Kiev announced the neo-Nazi unit will be monitoring polls in next month’s presidential election.

In 2017, Congressman Ro Khanna led the effort to ban Azov from receiving U.S. arms and training. But the damage has already been done: The research group Bellingcat proved that Azov had already received access to American grenade launchers, while a Daily Beast investigation showed that US trainers are unable to prevent aid from reaching white supremacists. And Azov itself had proudly posted a video of the unit welcoming NATO representatives.

(Azov isn’t the only far-right formation to get Western affirmation. In December 2014, Amnesty International accused the Dnipro-1 battalion of potential war crimes, including “using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” Six months later, Senator John McCain visited and praised the battalion.)

Particularly concerning is Azov’s campaign to transform Ukraine into a hub for transnational white supremacy. The unit has recruited neo-Nazis from Germany, the UK, Brazil, Sweden, and America; last October, the FBI arrested four California white supremacists who had allegedly received training from Azov. This is a classic example of blowback: US support of radicals abroad ricocheting to hit America.

Far right ties to government

“Ukrainian police declare admiration for Nazi collaborators”

—RFE, February 13, 2019


Speaker of Parliament Andriy Parubiy cofounded and led two neo-Nazi organizations: the Social-National Party of Ukraine (later renamed Svoboda), and Patriot of Ukraine, whose members would eventually form the core of Azov.

Although Parubiy left the far right in the early 2000’s, he hasn’t rejected his past. When asked about it in a 2016 interview, Parubiy replied that his “values” haven’t changed. Parubiy, whose autobiography shows him marching with the neo-Nazi wolfsangel symbol used by Aryan Nations, regularly meets with Washington think tanks and politicians; his neo-Nazi background is ignored or outright denied.

Even more disturbing is the far right’s penetration of law enforcement. Shortly after Maidan, the US equipped and trained the newly founded National Police, in what was intended to be a hallmark program buttressing Ukrainian democracy.

The deputy minister of the Interior—which controls the National Police—is Vadim Troyan, a veteran of Azov and Patriot of Ukraine. In 2014, when Troyan was being considered for police chief of Kiev, Ukrainian Jewish leaders were appalled by his neo-Nazi background. Today, he’s deputy of the department running US-trained law enforcement in the entire nation.

Earlier this month, RFE reported on National Police leadership admiring Stepan Bandera—a Nazi collaborator and Fascist whose troops participated in the Holocaust—on social media.

The fact that Ukraine’s police is peppered with far-right supporters explains why neo-Nazis operate with impunity on the streets.

State-sponsored glorification of Nazi collaborators

“Ukrainian extremists celebrate Ukrainian Nazi SS divisions…in the middle of a major Ukrainian city”

—Anti-Defamation League Director of European Affairs, April 28, 2018


It’s not just the military and street gangs: Ukraine’s far right has successfully hijacked the post-Maidan government to impose an intolerant and ultranationalist culture over the land.

In 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed legislation making two WWII paramilitaries—the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)—heroes of Ukraine, and made it a criminal offense to deny their heroism. The OUN had collaborated with the Nazis and participated in the Holocaust, while the UPA slaughtered thousands of Jews and 70,000-100,000 Poles on their own volition.

The government-funded Ukrainian Institute of National Memory is institutionalizing the whitewashing of Nazi collaborators. Last summer, the Ukrainian parliament featured an exhibit commemorating the OUN’s 1941 proclamation of cooperation with the Third Reich (imagine the French government installing an exhibit celebrating the Vichy state!).

Torchlight marches in honor of OUN/UPA leaders like Roman Shukhevych (a commander in a Third Reich auxiliary battalion) are a regular feature of the new Ukraine. The recuperation even extends to SS Galichina, a Ukrainian division of the Waffen-SS; the director of the Institute of National Memory proclaimed that the SS fighters were “war victims.” The government’s embrace of Bandera is not only deplorable, but also extremely divisive, considering the OUN/UPA are reviled in eastern Ukraine.

Predictably, the celebration of Nazi collaborators has accompanied a rise in outright anti-Semitism.

“Jews Out!” chanted thousands during a January 2017 march honoring OUN leader Bandera. (The next day the police denied hearing anything anti-Semitic.) That summer, a three-day festival celebrating the Nazi collaborator Shukhevych capped off with the firebombing of a synagogue. In November 2017, RFE reported Nazi salutes as 20,000 marched in honor of the UPA. And last April, hundreds marched in L’viv with coordinated Nazi salutes honoring SS Galichina; the march was promoted by the L’viv regional government.

The Holocaust revisionism is a multi-pronged effort, ranging from government-funded seminars, brochures, and board games, to the proliferation of plaques, statues, and streets renamed after butchers of Jews, to far-right children camps, where youth are inculcated with ultranationalist ideology.

Within several years, an entire generation will be indoctrinated to worship Holocaust perpetrators as national heroes.

Book bans

“No state should be allowed to interfere in the writing of history.”

—British historian Antony Beevor, after his award-winning book was banned in Ukraine, The Telegraph, January 23, 2018


Ukraine’s State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting is enforcing the glorification of Ukraine’s new heroes by banning “anti-Ukrainian” literature that goes against the government narrative. This ideological censorship includes acclaimed books by Western authors.

In January 2018, Ukraine made international headlines by banning Stalingrad by award-winning British historian Antony Beevor because of a single paragraph about a Ukrainian unit massacring 90 Jewish children during World War II. In December, Kiev banned The Book Thieves by Swedish author Anders Rydell (which, ironically, is about the Nazis’ suppression of literature) because he mentioned troops loyal to Symon Petliura (an early 20th-century nationalist leader) had slaughtered Jews.

This month, the Ukrainian embassy in Washington exported this intolerance to America by brazenly demanding the United States ban a Russian movie from American theaters. Apparently, the billions Washington invested in promoting democracy in Ukraine have failed to teach Kiev basic concepts of free speech.

Anti-Semitism

“I’m telling you one more time—go to hell, kikes. The Ukrainian people have had it to here with you.”

—Security services reserve general Vasily Vovk, May 11, 2017


Unsurprisingly, government-led glorification of Holocaust perpetrators was a green light for other forms of anti-Semitism. The past three years saw an explosion of swastikas and SS runes on city streets, death threats, and vandalism of Holocaust memorials, Jewish centers, cemeteries, tombs, and places of worship, all of which led Israel to take the unusual step of publicly urging Kiev to address the epidemic.

Public officials make anti-Semitic threats with no repercussions. These include: a security services general promising to eliminate the zhidi (a slur equivalent to ‘kikes’); a parliament deputy going off on an anti-Semitic rant on television; a far-right politician lamenting Hitler didn’t finish off the Jews; and an ultranationalist leader vowing to cleanse Odessa of zhidi.

For the first few years after Maidan, Jewish organizations largely refrained from criticizing Ukraine, perhaps in the hope Kiev would address the issue on its own. But by 2018, the increasing frequency of anti-Semitic incidents led Jewish groups to break their silence.

Last year, the Israeli government’s annual report on anti-Semitism heavily featured Ukraine, which had more incidents than all post-Soviet states combined. The World Jewish Congress, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and 57 members of the US Congress all vociferously condemned Kiev’s Nazi glorification and the concomitant anti-Semitism.

Ukrainian Jewish leaders are also speaking out. In 2017, the director of one of Ukraine’s largest Jewish organizations published a New York Times op-ed urging the West to address Kiev’s whitewashing. Last year, 41 Ukrainian Jewish leaders denounced the growth of anti-Semitism. That’s especially telling, given that many Ukrainian Jewish leaders supported the Maidan uprising.

None of these concerns have been addressed in any meaningful way.

Roma pogroms

“‘They wanted to kill us’: masked neo-fascists strike fear into Ukraine’s Roma.”

—The Guardian, August 27, 2018


Ukraine’s far right has resisted carrying out outright attacks on Jews; other vulnerable groups haven’t been so lucky.

Last spring, a lethal wave of anti-Roma pogroms swept through Ukraine, with at least six attacks in two months. Footage from the pogroms evokes the 1930s: Armed thugs attack women and children while razing their camps. At least one man was killed, while others, including a child, were stabbed.

Two gangs behind the attacks—C14 and the National Druzhina—felt comfortable enough to proudly post pogrom videos on social media. That’s not surprising, considering that the National Druzhina is part of Azov, while the neo-Nazi C14 receives government funding for “educational” programs. Last October, C14 leader Serhiy Bondar was welcomed at America House Kyiv, a center run by the US government.

Appeals from international organizations and the US embassy fell on deaf ears: Months after the United Nations demanded Kiev end “systematic persecution” of the Roma, a human-rights group reported C14 were allegedly intimidating Roma in a joint patrol with the Kiev police.

LGBT and Women’s-rights groups

“‘It’s even worse than before’: How the ‘Revolution of Dignity’ Failed LGBT Ukrainians.”

—RFE, November 21, 2018


In 2016, after pressure from the US Congress, the Kiev government began providing security for the annual Kiev Pride parade. However, this increasingly looks like a Potemkin affair: two hours of protection, with widespread attacks on LGBT individuals and gatherings during the rest of the year. Nationalist groups have targeted LGBT meetings with impunity, going so far as to shut down an event hosted by Amnesty International as well as assault a Western journalist at a transgender rights rally. Women’s-rights marches have also been targeted, including brazen attacks in March.

Attacks on press

“The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a Ukrainian law enforcement raid at the Kiev offices of Media Holding Vesti…more than a dozen masked officers ripped open doors with crowbars, seized property, and fired tear gas in the offices.”

—The Committee to Protect Journalists, February 9, 2018


In May 2016, Myrotvorets, an ultranationalist website with links to the government, published the personal data of thousands of journalists who had obtained accreditation from Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine. Myrotvorets labeled the journalists “terrorist collaborators.”

A government-tied website declaring open season on journalists would be dangerous anywhere, but it is especially so in Ukraine, which has a disturbing track record of journalist assassinations. This includes Oles Buzina, gunned down in 2015, and Pavel Sheremet, assassinated by car bomb a year later.

The Myrotvorets doxing was denounced by Western reporters, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and ambassadors from the G7 nations. In response, Kiev officials, including Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, praised the site: “This is your choice to cooperate with occupying forces,” Avakov told journalists, while posting “I Support Myrotvorets” on Facebook. Myrotvorets remains operational today.

Last fall brought another attack on the media, this time using the courts. The Prosecutor General’s office was granted a warrant to seize records of RFE anti-corruption reporter Natalie Sedletska. An RFE spokeswoman warned that Kiev’s actions created “a chilling atmosphere for journalists,” while parliament deputy Mustafa Nayyem called it “an example of creeping dictatorship.”

Language laws

“[Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk] also made a personal appeal to Russian-speaking Ukrainians, pledging to support…a special status to the Russian language.”

—US Secretary of State John Kerry, April 24, 2014


Ukraine is extraordinarily multilingual: In addition to the millions of Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainians, there are areas where Hungarian, Romanian, and other tongues are prevalent. These languages were protected by a 2012 regional-language law.

The post-Maidan government alarmed Russian-speaking Ukrainians by attempting to annul that law. The US State Department and Secretary of State John Kerry sought to assuage fears in 2014 by pledging that Kiev would protect the status of Russian. Those promises came to naught.

A 2017 law mandated that secondary education be conducted strictly in Ukrainian, which infuriated Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece. Several regions passed legislation banning the use of Russian in public life. Quotas enforce Ukrainian usage on TV and radio. (This would be akin to Washington forcing Spanish-language media to broadcast mostly in English.)

And in February 2018, Ukraine’s supreme court struck down the 2012 regional language law—the one Kerry promised eastern Ukrainians would stay in effect.

Currently, Kiev is preparing to pass a draconian law that would mandate the use of Ukrainian in most aspects of public life. It’s another example of Kiev alienating millions of its own citizens, while claiming to embrace Western values.

The price of willful blindness

These examples are only a tiny fraction of Ukraine’s slide toward intolerance, but they should be enough to point out the obvious: Washington’s decision to ignore the proliferation of armed neo-Nazi groups in a highly unstable nation only led to them gaining more power.

This easily predictable outcome is in marked contrast to Washington’s enthusiasm over the “Revolution of Dignity.” “Nationalism is exactly what Ukraine needs,” proclaimed a New Republic article by historian Anne Applebaum, whose celebration of nationalism came out right around the time that Ukraine green-lighted the formation of white-supremacist paramilitaries. A mere four months after Applebaum’s essay, Newsweek ran an article titled “Ukrainian nationalist volunteers committing ‘ISIS-style’ war crimes.”

In essay after essay, DC foreign-policy heads have denied or celebrated the influence of Ukraine’s far right. (Curiously, the same analysts vociferously denounce rising nationalism in Hungary, Poland, and Italy as highly dangerous.) Perhaps think-tankers deluded themselves into thinking Kiev’s far-right phase would tucker itself out. More likely, they simply embraced DC’s go-to strategy of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend.” Either way, the ramifications stretch far beyond Ukraine.

America’s backing of the Maidan uprising, along with the billions DC sinks into post-Maidan Kiev, make it clear: Starting February 2014, Ukraine became Washington’s latest democracy-spreading project. What we permit in Ukraine sends a green light to others.

By tolerating neo-Nazi gangs and battalions, state-led Holocaust distortion, and attacks on LGBT and the Roma, the United States is telling the rest of Europe: “We’re fine with this.” The implications—especially at a time of a global far-right revival—are profoundly disturbing.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 37523
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Nazi Terrorists in Ukraine

Postby admin » Wed Oct 09, 2024 11:13 pm

Ukraine: Investigate, Punish Hate Crimes. Violent Attacks by Radical Groups Increasing
by Human Rights Watch
June 14, 2018 12:01AM EDT

Image
Activists and supporters of the Azov civil corp, Svoboda (Freedom), Ukrainian nationalist parties and the far-right radical group Right Sector take part in a rally to mark Defender of Ukraine Day, in Kiev, Ukraine October 14, 2017. © REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

(Kyiv) – Ukraine's authorities have not responded adequately to the growing number of violent attacks and threats promoting hate and discrimination in Ukraine by members of violent radical groups, Human Rights Watch said today. In a joint letter to Ukrainian authorities Human Rights Watch and three other international human rights groups said that the authorities should immediately condemn the attacks and carry out effective investigations to hold the assailants accountable.

The letter from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Front Line Defenders, and Freedom House addressed the Ukrainian Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor General’s Office and described a series of hate-motivated violent incidents and harassment in recent months by radical groups against Roma, LGBT people, feminists, and rights activists. The authorities should take steps to prevent and stop hate-motivated violence and harassment, Human Rights Watch said.

“Brutal attacks on Roma people, LGBT people, and rights activists have been on the rise in recent months in Ukraine," said Tanya Cooper, Ukraine researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government has taken little action in response, which cannot but embolden and encourage the attackers.”

Activists and supporters of the Azov civil corp, Svoboda (Freedom), Ukrainian nationalist parties and the far-right radical group Right Sector take part in a rally to mark Defender of Ukraine Day


Violent Attacks by Radical Groups Increasing in Ukraine, by Human Rights Watch

Since the beginning of 2018, members of radical groups such as C14, Right Sector, Traditsii i Poryadok (Traditions and Order), Karpatska Sich and others have carried out at least two dozen violent attacks, threats, or instances of intimidation in Kyiv, Vinnitsa, Uzhgorod, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, and other Ukrainian cities. Law enforcement authorities have rarely opened investigations. In the cases in which they did, there is no indication that authorities took effective investigative measures to identify the attackers, even in cases in which the assailants publicly claimed responsibility on social media.

Media reports that some municipal administrations have recruited people from groups that promote hatred and discrimination to conduct “policing activities” during peaceful protests are also a source of concern, the groups said.

While citizen assistance of law enforcement authorities may be compatible with Ukrainian and international human rights law, such volunteers have no greater power or exemptions than ordinary Ukrainian citizens. They do not have the authority to use force in any circumstance and they may not restrain or detain people or confiscate materials, including, for example, flags or banners used at a rally.

Members of radical groups have also routinely tried, and often succeeded, at disrupting public events held by independent groups and threatened the safety of organizers and participants. The most recent examples include the disruption of a public lecture organized by the Ukraine office of Amnesty International in May, and threats in June against Freedom House for organizing a discussion about violence by radical groups that promote hatred and discrimination in Kyiv. The discussion took place without incident.

“Members of radical groups that attack and intimidate people to promote hate and discrimination are breaking Ukraine's law and should be held accountable,” Cooper said. “Ukrainian law enforcement authorities should protect Ukrainians' right to peaceful assembly without fear of obstruction and attacks.”
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 37523
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Nazi Terrorists in Ukraine

Postby admin » Wed Oct 09, 2024 11:21 pm

Ukraine underplays role of far right in conflict
by David Stern
BBC News, Kiev
13 December 2014
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30414955

Image
The Azov volunteer battalion is run by an extremist group and sports a modified neo-Nazi Wolf's Hook

Ever since Ukraine's February revolution, the Kremlin has characterised the new leaders in Kiev as a "fascist junta" made up of neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, set on persecuting, if not eradicating, the Russian-speaking population.

This is demonstrably false. Far-right parties failed to pass a 5% barrier to enter parliament, although if they had banded together, and not split their vote, they would have probably slipped past the threshold.

Only one government minister has links to nationalist parties - though he is in no way a neo-Nazi or fascist. And the speaker of parliament, Volodymyr Groysman, is Jewish. He has the third most powerful position in the country after the president and prime minister.

But Ukrainian officials and many in the media err to the other extreme. They claim that Ukrainian politics are completely fascist-free. This, too, is plain wrong.

As a result, the question of the presence of the far-right in Ukraine remains a highly sensitive issue, one which top officials and the media shy away from. No-one wants to provide fuel to the Russian propaganda machine.

Image
Mr Poroshenko (R) was pictured on his website clasping Serhiy Korotkykh on the shoulder

But this blanket denial also has its dangers, since it allows the ultra-nationalists to fly under the radar. Many Ukrainians are unaware that they exist, or even what a neo-Nazi or fascist actually is, or what they stand for.

Controversial 'patriot'

This hyper-sensitivity and stonewalling were on full display after President Petro Poroshenko presented a Ukrainian passport to someone who, according to human rights activists, is a "Belarusian neo-Nazi".

The Ukrainian leader handed out medals on 5 December to fighters who had tenaciously defended the main airport in the eastern region of Donetsk from being taken over by Russian-backed separatists.

Among the recipients was Serhiy Korotkykh, a Belarusian national, to whom Mr Poroshenko awarded Ukrainian citizenship, praising his "courageous and selfless service".

The president's website, external showed a photo of Mr Poroshenko patting the shoulder of the Belarusian, who was clad in military fatigues.

Image
Serhiy Korotkykh was among the fighters surrounded inside the wreck of Donetsk airport terminal

Experts who follow the far right have strongly objected to President Poroshenko's decision.

They say Mr Korotkykh was a member of the far-right Russian National Unity party and also a founding member of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Society (NSS) in Russia.

According to Ukrainian academic Anton Shekhovtsov, the NSS's main goal "is to prepare for a race war".

Mr Shekhovtsov said the Belarusian had been charged for involvement in a bombing in central Moscow in 2007, and was detained in 2013 in the Belarusian capital Minsk for allegedly stabbing an anti-fascist activist. He was later released for lack of evidence.

Even though the details involved accusations rather than facts, if true they were damning, said human rights activist Halya Coynash, external.

Top Ukrainian officials then rejected as defamatory any claims that Mr Korotkykh had neo-Nazi ties.

"Counter-intelligence has no information that could prevent him from receiving Ukrainian citizenship," said Valentyn Nalyvaychenko, the head of Ukraine's security services.

Nevertheless, the fact is, neo-Nazis are indeed a fixture in Ukraine's new political landscape, albeit in small numbers.

Azov Battalion

As Mr Korotkykh's case demonstrates, the ultra-nationalists have proven to be effective and dedicated fighters in the brutal war in the east against Russian-backed separatists and Russian forces, whose numbers also include a large contingent from Russia's far right.

As a result, they have achieved a level of acceptance, even though most Ukrainians are unfamiliar with their actual beliefs.

The volunteer Azov Battalion is a case in point.

Image
The Azov battalion seems to enjoy the support of several top officials

Run by the extremist Patriot of Ukraine organisation, which considers Jews and other minorities "sub-human", external and calls for a white, Christian crusade against them, it sports three Nazi symbols, external on its insignia: a modified Wolf's Hook, a black sun (or "Hakensonne") and the title Black Corps, which was used by the Waffen SS.

Azov is just one of more than 50 volunteer groups fighting in the east, the vast majority of which are not extremist, yet it seems to enjoy special backing from some top officials:

• Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and his deputy Anton Gerashchenko actively supported the parliament candidacy of Andriy Biletsky, the Azov and Patriot of Ukraine commander
• Vadim Troyan, another top Azov official and Patriot of Ukraine member, was recently named police chief for the Kiev region
• Mr Korotkykh is also an Azov member

Ukraine's media have been noticeably silent on this subject.

Recently, prominent newspaper and online publication Left Bank published an extensive interview, external with Mr Troyan, in which the journalists asked no questions at all about his neo-Nazi past or political views.

And after the Unian news agency reported the presidential ceremony under the headline, "Poroshenko awarded Belarusian neo-Nazi with Ukrainian passport", it was soon replaced with an article that air-brushed out the accusations of extremism.

Unian's editors have declined to comment on the two pieces.

There are significant risks to this silence. Experts say the Azov Battalion, which has been widely reported on in the West, has damaged Ukraine's image and bolsters Russia's information campaign.

And although Ukraine is emphatically not run by fascists, far-right extremists seem to be making inroads by other means, as in the country's police department.

Ukraine's public is grossly under-informed about this. The question is, why doesn't anyone want to tell them?
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 37523
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Nazi Terrorists in Ukraine

Postby admin » Wed Oct 09, 2024 11:35 pm

'Banderite' Rebrand: Ukrainian Police Declare Admiration For Nazi Collaborators To Make A Point
by Christopher Miller
RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
February 11, 2019 17:06 GMT
Updated February 13, 2019 09:24 GMT
https://www.rferl.org/a/banderite-rebra ... 64110.html

Image
Police detain far-right activists in Kyiv on February 9.

KYIV -- Across social media, Ukrainian police and law enforcement officials are apologizing for one officer's slur aimed at far-right ultranationalists and making it known: They, too, are "#Banderites." Or, to be clear, supporters of militant Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.

National Police chief Serhiy Knyazev says he is one. So does Interior Ministry and National Police spokesman Artem Shevchenko. Interior Ministry adviser Zoryan Shkyryak is, too.

From the top on down, cops and their bosses are lining up to air their admiration for Stepan Bandera, a hero to many Ukrainians whose Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its military arm, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), fought both Soviet and Nazi forces during World War II but is also accused of carrying out murderous campaigns against Poles and Jews.*

The #IamaBanderite (#ЯБандерівець in Ukrainian) hashtag appeared on February 10, a day after a riot-police officer used the derogatory play on Bandera's name during a violent confrontation with dozens of ultranationalists at a campaign event in Kyiv for presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko.

The interlopers had come to the event to demand justice for an acid attack that killed civic activist Kateryna Handzyuk amid a rash of violence against activists. Carrying signs that asked, "Who ordered the attack on Handzyuk?" they called for Kherson regional-council head Vladyslav Manher, a recently suspended member of Tymoshenko's party, to be arrested for his alleged role as its organizer.

On February 11, two days after the clash, Manher received an official notice of suspicion from Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko.

Videos of the violence that circulated online showed police in riot gear scuffling with the group, which included members of the far-right C14 organization. Some members of the group, which is said to take its name from a 14-word phrase used by White supremacists and has openly offered its members out as paid thugs, were behind violent attacks on Romany camps in Kyiv last year.

Image

In one video, officers are seen throwing some of the far-right protesters to the ground, and one is heard shouting, "On the ground, Banderite!"

Police detained but later reportedly released 18 people, citing a lack of evidence that would justify their continued detention.

But prosecutors on February 11 said they had opened criminal proceedings against the far-right group for hooliganism, causing bodily harm, and the seizure of a public building. Meanwhile, an investigation was opened against police officers involved for excessive use of force.

#ЯБандерівець

But it wasn't the violence or the message that caught the public's attention. It was the "Banderite" slur that sparked an outpouring of criticism from Ukrainians on social media.

"I personally, as the chief of police in Kyiv, want to apologize to society for the actions of this officer," Andriy Kryshchenko said in a video statement posted to the Interior Ministry Facebook account on January 10. "Out of conviction and because of my understanding of the historical situation in Ukraine, I consider it unacceptable."

"Undoubtedly, this employee will be punished," the Kyiv chief of police vowed. "In addition, some obscene vocabulary was used. We have to do something about this."

Image
A woman holds a Stepan Bandera portrait during a rally of different nationalist parties to mark the 110th anniversary of his birth in Kyiv on January 1.

Within hours, the country's most senior law enforcement officials and countless police officers had embarked on a sort of social-media apology tour that saw them aligning themselves with the late Nazi collaborator.

"I apologize. I am a Banderite, too! Glory to Ukraine!" wrote Knyazev, the chief of the Ukrainian National Police, in a post on his Facebook page that has been shared nearly 400 times.

When asked to clarify whether the hashtag was meant in earnest or was ironic, Shevchenko, the police spokesman, told RFE/RL by phone that it was "both." He said Shkyryak, the Interior Ministry adviser, was the man behind the campaign. Shkyryak could not immediately be reached for comment.

But Shkyryak posted to Facebook around the same time as Knyazev a photograph of himself sitting beneath a painting of Bandera. "I work in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. This is my office," he wrote in the caption. "I am also a Banderite and I am proud of it! Bandera, my hero!"

He said invoking the derogatory version of Bandera's name by an officer in ordering a suspect to the ground was "shameful and unacceptable!" At the same time, he said he did not support "violent actions" or "attempts to seize state buildings" by groups who want to "destabilize, stoke panic and despair in society."

The three officials and many more officers, as well as civilian supporters, joined in the campaign using the hashtag.

But not everyone appreciated the sentiment.

In a post on Facebook on February 10, Eduard Dolinsky, head of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, a leading Jewish advocacy group, pointed out that the dust-up that spawned the hashtag occurred on the anniversary of a mass killing of Poles by Bandera's UPA.

"Yesterday, February 9, was the anniversary of the first massacre of Poles by Banderites," he wrote. "In the village of Parosl, the UPA cut down more than 150 children, women, and men."

He added: "Today, the police are holding an 'I am a Banderite!' flash mob. Maybe you're better off holding an 'I am a Pole!' flash mob."

*This sentence has been amended to clarify the description of Stepan Bandera and the UPA.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 37523
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Nazi Terrorists in Ukraine

Postby admin » Thu Oct 10, 2024 12:08 am

Ultra-nationalist Ukrainian battalion gears up for more fighting
by Gabriela Baczynska
Reuters
March 25, 2015 4:02 AM MDT Updated 10 years ago
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukra ... J20150325/

Image
Ukraine's voluntary militia called the Azov Battalion holds artillery training in east Ukraine's village of Urzuf that sits west of the port city of Mariupol on the Azov Sea, March 19, 2015. REUTERS/Marko Djurica P

URZUF, Ukraine (Reuters) - The far-right Azov battalion, whose symbol resembles a black swastika on a yellow background, is preparing to defend the port city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine against a widely expected attack by pro-Russian separatists.

The 1,000 strong ultra-nationalist militia has a reputation as a fierce pro-government fighting
force in the almost year-old conflict with the Russia-backed rebels in east Ukraine, and is disdainful of peace efforts.

But the radical views of the commanders of a group affiliated to Ukraine's national guard which works alongside the army, and the use of symbols echoing Nazi emblems have caused alarm in the West and Russia, and could return to haunt Kiev's pro-Western leadership when fighting eventually ends.

"We don't like the ceasefire at all. As with the previous ones, it'll only lead to another offensive by the enemy," Azov commander Andriy Biletsky told Reuters while watching artillery drills at Urzuf, on the shores of the Sea of Azov, about 40 km south-west of Mariupol.

"Appeasing the aggressor will only lead to more aggression. This war will inevitably continue - either until our complete defeat or until our full victory and return to our land in all east Ukraine and Crimea. We believe in the second scenario," said the 35-year-old from the city of Kharkiv.

As the drills continued, other members of the battalion were in combat with the separatists at the village of Shirokino, some 60 km (38 miles) to the northeast.

Shirokino, where Ukrainian and rebel positions are separated by only a few kilometers of village dwellings, is one of several places along the line of contact where fighting has continued despite a February ceasefire.

Mariupol, which Azov helped recapture from the rebels last year, is a big prize. Its capture would offer the separatists the chance to open a road further south a year after Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine. [ID:nL5N0W30SQ]

Kiev and the West say Russia drives the rebellion in east Ukraine and has sent in troops as well as weapons to help the separatists. Moscow has sided with the rebels but denies direct military involvement.

"PATRIOT OF UKRAINE"

The Azov battalion originated from Biletsky's paramilitary national socialist group called "Patriot of Ukraine", which propagated slogans of white supremacy, racial purity, the need for authoritarian power and a centralized national economy.

"Patriot of Ukraine" opposed giving up Ukraine's sovereignty by joining international blocs, called for rolling back of liberal economy and political democracy, including free media.

In 2008, Biletsky urged "thousands of young fanatic apostles" to advance its ideas. Local media have reported on several violent incidents in which the group was involved.

Since Azov was officially created last May, it has been involved in fighting on the outskirts of the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, a battle for the town of Illovaysk which Ukrainian forces lost last summer and across the coast of the Sea of Azov.

But, since Azov was enrolled as a regiment of Ukraine's National Guard in September and started receiving increased supplies of heavy arms, Biletsky has toned down his rhetoric.

Most of "Patriot of Ukraine" websites are now down or under restricted access. He denied Azov's symbol was a reference to Nazism, saying it was rather a Ukrainian nationalist symbol.

Biletsky said he now has infantry and artillery units and was building a proper tank force. His troops training on the cannons in Urzuf were heavily armed with quality uniforms.

Biletsky said his troops, all volunteers, were "officially" making 6,000 hryvnia ($316) a month but in fact around 10,000 hryvnia. Apart from getting funds from the interior ministry, Azov is believed to be getting support from among Ukrainian super-rich oligarchs.

Biletsky did not say whether and how his views have changed since he wrote the "Patriot of Ukraine" program but said his priority now was extinguishing the pro-Russian rebellion.

"We have only one goal right now - fighting for the homeland until all of it is freed. And then we will try to build a new Ukraine that we could all be proud of. We are patriots. We believe in our nation, nationalism is our ideology," he said.

Biletsky, a historian by education who is married with a son, was detained in 2011 on charges of assaulting a man.

He was released after an amnesty in February 2014 and his aides dismiss the case as an example of political persecution of Ukrainian nationalists under Ukraine's ousted president and Moscow ally Viktor Yanukovich.

He has since been elected to the Ukrainian parliament, riding a wave of an increased nationalist sentiment in Ukraine triggered by the war.

PRESSURE ON KIEV

Some Ukrainian politicians have defended Biletsky and his troops as patriots. There is lingering doubt, however, over what role Azov might play when the military conflict ends and whether its members could challenge President Petro Poroshenko and his government or threaten the wider public security.

Biletsky has criticized Poroshenko for losing out on in an information war against Russia and the rebels, and is dismissive of the chances for a negotiated solution to the conflict.

"How can we settle it peacefully if part of our territory is occupied? Will they give us Crimea back? How can there be a peaceful way to stop an aggression?," he said.

In a sign of persistent tensions between the pro-Ukrainian volunteer battalions and Ukraine's regular army, Biletsky blamed Ukraine's top military commanders for battlefield defeats.

He said he has lost about 60 men in the conflict and wants a revamp of Ukraine's armed forces to promote a new generation of field commanders who have fought on the ground in a conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people.

"We have loads of generals brought up in the Soviet Union who have no idea of combat, who rose as state officials in uniforms rather than commanding officers in the field. These people don't want to and don't know how to fight."

($1 = 19.0000 hryvnia)

Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev; Editing by Timothy Heritage and Anna Willard
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 37523
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Nazi Terrorists in Ukraine

Postby admin » Thu Oct 10, 2024 12:19 am

Report on the human rights situation in Ukraine
16 November 2015 to 15 February 2016
by Office of the United Nations, High Commissioner for Human Rights



Contents

I. Executive Summary ................................................................................................ 1–21 6
II. Rights to life, liberty, security and physical integrity .............................................. 22–67 10
A. Alleged violations of international humanitarian law ..................................... 22–31 10
B. Casualties ........................................................................................................ 32–37 12
C. Missing persons .............................................................................................. 38–44 14
D. Summary executions, enforced disappearances, unlawful and arbitrary
detention, and torture and ill-treatment ........................................................... 45–66 15
III. Accountability and administration of justice ........................................................... 67–107 21
A. Accountability for human rights violations and abuses in the east ................. 67–85 21
B. Individual cases .............................................................................................. 86–90 24
C. High-profile cases of violence related to riots and public disturbances .......... 92–107 26
IV. Fundamental freedoms ............................................................................................ 108–148 30
A. Violations of the right to freedom of movement ............................................. 108–118 30
B. Violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief ................................... 119–126 32
C. Violations of the right to freedom of peaceful assembly ................................ 127–132 33
D. Violations of the right to freedom of association ............................................ 133–139 34
E. Violations of the right to freedom of opinion and expression......................... 140–147 35
V. Economic and social rights ..................................................................................... 148–165 36
A. Right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health .......... 152–158 38
B. Housing, land and property rights ................................................................... 159–165 39
VI. Legal developments and institutional reforms......................................................... 166–182 40
A. Notification on derogation from the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights ......................................................................................... 166–167 40
B. Notification in relation to 16 United Nations treaties ..................................... 168–169 41
C. Constitutional reform ...................................................................................... 170–171 42
D. Implementation of the Human Rights Action Plan ......................................... 172–173 42
E. Adoption of the law on internally displaced persons ...................................... 174–175 42
F. Draft law on temporarily occupied territory ................................................... 176–178 43
G. Amendments to the criminal law .................................................................... 179 43
H. Reform of the civil service .............................................................................. 180 43
I. Civil registration ............................................................................................. 181–182 44
VII. Human Rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea .......................................... 183–200 44
A. Due process and fair trial rights ...................................................................... 188–190 45
B. Rights to life, liberty, security and physical integrity ..................................... 191 46
C. Violations of the right to freedom of opinion and expression......................... 192 46
D. Violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief ................................... 193–194 46
E. Right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health .......... 195 47
F. Discrimination in access to services ............................................................... 196 47
G. The ‘civil blockade’ of Crimea ....................................................................... 197–200 47
VIII. Conclusions and recommendations ......................................................................... 201–215 48

Image

Image

I. Executive Summary

1. This is the thirteenth report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the situation of human rights in Ukraine, based on the work of the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU)1. It covers the period from 16 November 2015 to 15 February 20162.

2. During the reporting period, despite a reduction in hostilities, the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine continued to significantly affect people residing in the conflict zone and all their human rights. The Government of Ukraine continued to not have effective control over considerable parts of the border with the Russian Federation (in certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions). Reportedly, this facilitated an inflow of ammunition, weaponry and fighters from the Russian Federation to the territories controlled by the armed groups.

3. The ceasefire in certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine agreed upon during the previous reporting period was further strengthened by the “regime of complete silence” introduced on 23 December 2015. However, in January and February, the Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observed systematic violations of the ceasefire. During the same period, clashes and exchanges of fire have escalated in several flashpoints, predominantly near the cities of Donetsk and Horlivka (both controlled by the armed groups), and in small villages and towns located on the contact line, such as Kominternove (controlled by armed groups) and Shyrokyne and Zaitseve (divided between Ukrainian armed forces and armed groups).

4. While small arms and light weapons were most frequently employed during these incidents, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission continued to report the presence of heavy weapons, tanks and artillery systems under 100mm calibre on either side of the contact line. Even if sporadic, the continued occurrences of indiscriminate shelling and the presence of anti-personnel mines and remnants of war exposed civilians to a constant threat of death or injury. During the reporting period, explosive remnants of war (ERW) and improvised explosive devices (IED) remained the main cause of civilian casualties in the conflict zone.

5. In addition, Ukrainian armed forces continue to position themselves near towns and villages while armed groups have embedded deeper into residential areas, further endangering the local population. The risk of re-escalation of hostilities therefore remained high.

6. The conflict continued to cause civilian casualties. Between 16 November 2015 and 15 February 2016, OHCHR recorded 78 conflict-related civilian casualties in eastern Ukraine: 21 killed (13 men and eight women), and 57 injured (41 men, eight women, six boys and two girls) – compared with 178 civilian casualties recorded (47 killed and 131 injured) during the previous reporting period of 16 August – 15 November 2015. Overall, the average monthly number of civilian casualties during the reporting period was among the lowest since the beginning of the conflict. In total, from the beginning of the conflict in mid-April 2014 to 15 February 2016, OHCHR recorded 30,211 casualties in eastern Ukraine, among civilians, Ukrainian armed forces, and members of armed groups – including 9,167 people killed and 21,044 injured.3

7. In the absence of massive artillery shelling of populated areas, ERW and IEDs remained the main cause of civilian casualties in the conflict zone during the reporting period. Given the threat that is presented by such weapons, there is an urgent need for extensive mine action activities, including the establishment of appropriate coordination mechanisms, mapping, mine risk education and awareness, on either side of the contact line.

8. People living in the conflict-affected area shared with OHCHR that they feel abandoned, particularly in villages located in the ‘grey’ or ‘buffer’ zone (See Map of Ukraine: Civilian casualties along the contact line, 16 November 2015 – 15 February 2016)4. Often trapped between Government and armed group checkpoints, some of these areas, such as Kominternove, have been deprived of any effective administration for prolonged periods of time. Others are divided by opposing armed forces (such as Shyrokyne and Zaitseve), while some towns are located near frontline hotspots (such as Debaltseve and Horlivka). The contact line has physically, politically, socially and economically isolated civilians, impacting all of their human rights and complicating the prospect for peace and reconciliation. Over three million people live in the areas directly affected by the conflict5 and urgent attention must be paid to protect and support them. Their incremental isolation emboldens those who promote enmity and violence, and undermines the prospect for peace.

9. Some assistance to territories under armed group control is being provided by local humanitarian partners, bilateral donors, and reportedly the Russian Federation, which delivers convoys, without the full consent or inspection of Ukraine. However, this aid is insufficient to respond to all the needs of 2.7 million civilians living in territories under the control of armed groups, and particularly those 800,000 living close to the contact line, who are particularly vulnerable.

10. The Government has registered 1.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), who have fled their homes as a result of the conflict. Between 800,000 and 1 million IDPs are living in territories controlled by the Government, where some continue to face discrimination in accessing public services. OHCHR has observed that some IDPs are returning to their homes, while others are unable to do so due to the destruction or military use of their property. According to government sources in neighbouring and European Union countries, over 1 million Ukrainians are seeking asylum or protection abroad, with the majority going to the Russian Federation and Belarus6.

11. According to the State Border Service, some 8,000 to 15,000 civilians cross the contact line on a daily basis, passing through six checkpoints in each transport corridor: three checkpoints operated by the Government, and three by the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’7, with a stretch of no-man’s land in between. OHCHR has regularly observed up to 300-400 vehicles – cars, minivans and buses – waiting in rows on either side of the road. Passengers spend the night in freezing temperatures and without access to water ‘Donetsk people’s republic’, freedom of movement has been further restricted, aggravating the isolation of those living in the conflict-affected areas. Policy decisions by the Government of Ukraine have further reinforced the existing contact line barrier. Moreover, there remains an almost total absence of information regarding procedures at checkpoints, subjecting civilians to uncertainty and arbitrariness.

12. Residents of territories under the armed groups’ control are particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses, which are exacerbated by the absence of the rule of law and any real protection. OHCHR continued to receive and verify allegations of killings, arbitrary and incommunicado detention, torture and ill-treatment in the ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ and ‘Luhansk people’s republic’8. In these territories, armed groups have established parallel ‘administrative structures’ and have imposed a growing framework of ‘legislation’ which violate international law, as well as the Minsk Agreements.

13. The ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ and ‘Luhansk people’s republic’ continued to deny OHCHR access to places of detention. OHCHR is concerned about the situation of individuals deprived of their liberty in the territories controlled by armed groups, due to the complete absence of due process and redress mechanisms. Of particular concern are those currently held in the former Security Service building in Donetsk and in the buildings currently occupied by the ‘ministries of state security’ of the ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ and ‘Luhansk people’s republic’.

14. OHCHR is also increasingly concerned about the lack of space for civil society actors to operate and for people to exercise their rights to freedoms of expression, religion, peaceful assembly and association in the territories controlled by armed groups. In January 2016, the ‘ministry of state security’ carried out a wave of arrests and detention of civil society actors in the ‘Donetsk people’s republic’.

15. OHCHR documented allegations of enforced disappearances, arbitrary and incommunicado detention, and torture and ill-treatment, perpetrated with impunity by Ukrainian law enforcement officials, mainly by elements of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). OHCHR urges the Ukrainian authorities to ensure prompt and impartial investigation into each reported case of human rights violations, as well as the prosecution of perpetrators. Accountability is critical to bring justice for victims, curtail impunity, and foster long-lasting peace.

16. OHCHR was granted access to official pre-trial detention facilities throughout areas under Government control9 and, following some of its interventions, noted some improvements in conditions of detention and access to medical care for some detainees in pre-trial detention in Odesa, Kharkiv, Mariupol, Artemivsk and Zaporizhzhia. In some cases, OHCHR intervention also led to due attention being afforded to allegations of illtreatment and to law enforcement investigations into violations of other human rights in custody. These improvements confirm the importance for OHCHR to enjoy unfettered access to all places of detention.

17. OHCHR is concerned about the lack of action toward clarifying the fate of missing persons and preventing persons from going missing as a result of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. There should be a clear commitment at the highest levels of the Government of Ukraine and by the ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ and ‘Luhansk people’s republic’ to fully cooperate on missing persons cases. Mechanisms to clarify the fate of missing persons need to be effective, impartial and transparent, and the victims and their families should always be at the centre of any action.

18. OHCHR continued to monitor the investigations and proceedings into the killings that occurred during the 2014 Maidan events, the 2 May 2014 Odesa violence, the 9 May 2014 Mariupol incidents and the 31 August 2015 Kyiv violence. The lack of progress in these cases undermines public confidence in the criminal justice system. It is essential that they be promptly addressed with absolute impartiality as their mishandling can jeopardize the peaceful resolution of disputes and fuel instability.

19. During the reporting period, the Government of Ukraine took steps towards ensuring greater independence of the judiciary, adopted a plan of action for the implementation of the National Human Rights Strategy, and improved its legislation on internally displaced persons (IDPs). However, some critical measures remain to be adopted, including the much-awaited parliamentary vote on decentralization, which has been postponed and should take place by 22 July 2016. Envisioned as part of the Minsk Process, this vote is to be the precursor to a series of steps toward peace. Decentralization was conceived as part of a package of confidence-building measures. These measures included the immediate and full ceasefire; pull-out of all heavy weaponry by either side of the contact line; dialogue on the modalities of conducting local elections in accordance with Ukrainian legislation; pardon and amnesty through law; release and exchange of all hostages and illegally-held persons; safe access and delivery of humanitarian aid; modalities for the full restoration of social and economic connections; restoration of control of the state border by the Ukrainian government in the whole conflict zone; pull-out of all foreign armed formations, military equipment, and mercenaries; constitutional reform containing the element of decentralization and approval of the special status of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions10.

20. The Government of Ukraine extended the territorial scope of its intended derogation from certain provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) to territories it does not effectively control, as well as to areas it partially or fully controls in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. This may further undermine human rights protection for those affected.

21. Despite being denied access to the peninsula, OHCHR continued to closely follow the situation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (“Crimea”)11, primarily relying on first-hand accounts. OHCHR, guided by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 68/262 on the territorial integrity of Ukraine remains concerned about violations taking place in Crimea, which is under the effective control of the Russian Federation. The imposition of the citizenship and the legislative framework of the Russian Federation, including penal laws, and the resulting administration of justice, has affected human rights in Crimea, especially for ethnic Ukrainians, minority groups, and indigenous peoples, such as Crimean Tatars. During the reporting period, OHCHR documented a continuing trend of criminal prosecution of Crimean Tatar demonstrators as well as arrests of Crimean Tatars for their alleged membership in ‘terrorist’ organizations. In a significant and worrying development, on 15 February, the prosecutor of Crimea filed a request with the supreme court of Crimea to recognize the Mejlis, the self-governing body of the Crimean Tatars, as an extremist organization and to ban its activities. Some decisions by the Government of Ukraine also affected the human rights of Crimeans, including those limiting their access to banking services in mainland Ukraine. The ‘civil blockade’ which Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian activists imposed as of 20 September 2015 – and which led to some human rights abuses – was lifted on 17 January 2016.

_______________

Notes:

1 HRMMU was deployed on 14 March 2014 to monitor and report on the human rights situation throughout Ukraine and to propose recommendations to the Government and other actors to address human rights concerns. For more details, see paragraphs 7–8 of the report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation of human rights in Ukraine of 19 September 2014 (A/HRC/27/75).

2 The report also provides an update of recent developments on cases that occurred during previous reporting periods.

3 This is a conservative estimate of OHCHR based on available data.

4 The 2016 UN Humanitarian Response Plan for Ukraine identifies the 0.8 million people living in areas along the contact line (200,000 in areas under Government control and 600,000 in areas under the control of the armed groups) as being in particular need of humanitarian assistance and protection.

5 This comprises 2.7 million in areas under the control of the armed groups and 200,000 near the contact line in areas under government control.

6 UNHCR, Ukraine Operational Update, 20 January – 9 February 2016.

7 Hereinafter ‘Donetsk people’s republic’.

8 Hereinafter ‘Luhansk people’s republic’.

9 In particular, in December 2015 and January 2016, HRMMU was granted unimpeded access to Mariupol SIZO and Artemivsk Penal Institution No. 6 of the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine, where it could conduct confidential interviews with detainees. The administration and personnel of SIZO and the Penal Institution were transparent and constructive during these visits. The heads and medical personnel expressed commitment to improve medical care for detainees.

10 Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, 12 February 2015.

11 The Autonomous Republic of Crimea technically known as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol.  
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 37523
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Nazi Terrorists in Ukraine

Postby admin » Thu Oct 10, 2024 12:50 am

With Axes And Hammers, Far-Right Vigilantes Destroy Another Romany Camp In Kyiv
by Christopher Miller
Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty
June 08, 2018 12:12 GMT
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-far-rig ... 80336.html

Image
Members of the far-right Azov National Druzhyna militia rally in December 2017.

KYIV -- Swinging axes and sledgehammers as a camera rolled, members of the far-right Azov National Druzhyna militia destroyed a Romany camp in Kyiv's Holosiyivskiy Park on June 7.

The attack marks the second such incident by far-right vigilantes in Kyiv and the fourth in Ukraine in the past six weeks.

The National Druzhyna, a militia formed in January by veterans of the far-right Azov Battalion, had visited the camp earlier in the day and spoken threateningly with a woman who lived there, an encounter that was filmed by the group and published on its Facebook page.

The militia also issued an ultimatum in the Facebook post for the Roma to clear out within 24 hours or be forced out by a "mob."

"When the police don't act, the National Druzhyna takes control of the situation," the militia wrote.

But the militia didn't wait. Hours later, what appeared to be around two dozen nationalists returned to destroy the camp and harass the few Romany women still there.

The attack was broadcast live on the militia's Facebook page.

That video, which has since been removed, shows the National Druzhyna members in T-shirts adorned with the group's insignia hacking at the camp's makeshift homes with axes and hammers.

A more complete, 12-minute clip of the nationalists' raid was eventually uploaded to YouTube by EuroMaydan, a political group born from the 2013-14 uprising of the same name.


Image

At one point, the militia members mock a woman and child fleeing with their belongings, asking if they planned to eat a nearby dog. "I heard you eat dogs," one of the men says. Later, another belittles a woman trying to collect belongings from the debris by suggesting her actions might be acceptable "in India, but not here."

Near the end of the video, uniformed Ukrainian police officers appear and casually make conversation as the nationalists wind up their raid.

With police looking on, more than a dozen of the vigilantes pose together to a cry of "Glory to the nation! Death to enemies!"

Kyiv police spokeswoman Oksana Blyshchik told Hromadske TV the Romany group had already fled the camp when militia members arrived, which the video clearly contradicts. She added that no one had been injured and nobody had been detained.

Late on June 7, Ukraine's National Police said in a statement that it had begun criminal proceedings in what it labeled a case of "hooliganism."

"All active participants in this event will be identified and brought to justice," the National Police said.

Right-Wing Immunity?

The Holosiyivskiy camp attack follows three others within the past month and a half.

In May, right-wing thugs attacked a Romany camp in western Ternopil. That followed the burning of one in the nearby village of Rudne in the Lviv region.

In April, members of the right-wing extremist group C14 chased a group of Roma from their camp at Lysa Hora nature reserve in Kyiv. Masked attackers hurled stones and sprayed gas as they chased terrified Romany men, women, and children from the makeshift settlement.

Image
This Roma camp was burned down in Kyiv in April.

Police did nothing until a video of the attack went viral online, forcing them to open an investigation, the results of which remain unclear.

Human rights groups have condemned the attacks and demanded that the authorities investigate them. They say some of the Romany families have been left homeless from the raids.

In its May Nations In Transit report, Freedom House warned of the threat to Ukrainian democracy posed by far-right extremism. "They are a real physical threat to left-wing, feminist, liberal, and LGBT activists, human rights defenders, as well as ethnic and religious minorities," the report said.

Critics accuse Ukraine's current leadership of ignoring the radical and sometimes violent actions of members of nationalist groups with far-right views because of how it might look cracking down on them after many fought to protect the country from Russia-backed forces in the war-torn eastern regions.

Perhaps hinting at a new tack, the National Police statement about the June 7 attack used markedly different language from statements about previous attacks.

"The police will rigorously respond to a violation of the law regardless of which organizations' members are violators," it said. "No one has the right to engage in illegal activities, pseudo ultimatums, or for the sake of PR to conduct demonstrative pogroms against other citizens. In particular, with regard to representatives of ethnic minorities."
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 37523
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Nazi Terrorists in Ukraine

Postby admin » Thu Oct 10, 2024 1:02 am

Islamic Battalions, Stocked With Chechens, Aid Ukraine in War With Rebels
by Andrew E. Kramer
New York Times
July 7, 2015
https://web.archive.org/web/20220410045 ... ?referrer=

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Image
Members of a Chechen battalion fighting against Russian-backed rebels in Lysychansk, Ukraine, in February. Credit...Olya Engalycheva/Associated Press

MARIUPOL, Ukraine — Wearing camouflage, with a bushy salt-and-pepper beard flowing over his chest and a bowie knife sheathed prominently in his belt, the man cut a fearsome figure in the nearly empty restaurant. Waiters hovered apprehensively near the kitchen, and try as he might, the man who calls himself “Muslim,” a former Chechen warlord, could not wave them over for more tea.

Even for Ukrainians hardened by more than a year of war here against Russian-backed separatists, the appearance of Islamic combatants, mostly Chechens, in towns near the front lines comes as something of a surprise — and for many of the Ukrainians, a welcome one.

“We like to fight the Russians,” said the Chechen, who refused to give his real name. “We always fight the Russians.”

He commands one of three volunteer Islamic battalions out of about 30 volunteer units in total fighting now in eastern Ukraine. The Islamic battalions are deployed to the hottest zones, which is why the Chechen was here.

Fighting is intensifying around Mariupol, a strategic seaport and industrial hub that the separatists have long coveted. Monitors for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe say they have seen steady nighttime shipments of Russian military equipment on a rail line north of here.

Recently, the Ukrainian authorities released photos — which they said were taken by a drone flying north of the city — that showed a massing of heavy weapons, including tanks and howitzers, on the rebel side.

Anticipating an attack in the coming months, the Ukrainians are happy for all the help they can get.

As the Ukrainians see it, they are at a lopsided disadvantage against the separatists because Western governments have refused to provide the government forces with anything like the military support that the rebels have received from Russia. The army, corrupt and underfunded, has been largely ineffective. So the Ukrainians welcome backing even from Islamic militants from Chechnya.

Image
Isa Munayev and other Muslim fighters in Ukraine in January. Mr. Munayev helped found the Chechen battalions and was killed in February, another leader said. Credit...Tomasz Glowacki

“I am on this path for 24 years now,” since the demise of the Soviet Union, the Chechen said in an interview. “The war for us never ended. We never ran from our war with Russia, and we never will.”

Ukrainian commanders worry that separatist groups plan to capture access roads to Mariupol and lay siege to the city, which had a prewar population of about half a million. To counter that, the city has come to rely on an assortment of right-wing and Islamic militias for its defense.

The Chechen commands the Sheikh Mansur group, named for an 18th-century Chechen resistance figure. It is subordinate to the nationalist Right Sector, a Ukrainian militia.

Neither the Sheikh Mansur group nor Right Sector is incorporated into the formal police or military, and the Ukrainian authorities decline to say how many Chechens are fighting in eastern Ukraine. They are all unpaid.

Apart from an enemy, these groups do not have much in common with Ukrainians — or, for that matter, with Ukraine’s Western allies, including the United States.

Right Sector, for example, formed during last year’s street protests in Kiev from a half-dozen fringe Ukrainian nationalist groups like White Hammer and the Trident of Stepan Bandera. Another, the Azov group, is openly neo-Nazi, using the “Wolf’s Hook” symbol associated with the SS. Without addressing the issue of the Nazi symbol, the Chechen said he got along well with the nationalists because, like him, they love their homeland and hate the Russians.

To try to bolster the abilities of the Ukrainian regular forces and reduce Kiev’s reliance on these quasilegal paramilitaries, the United States Army is training the Ukrainian national guard. The Americans are specifically prohibited from giving instruction to members of the Azov group.

Since the Afghan war of the 1980s, Moscow has accused the United States of encouraging Islamic militants to fight Russia along its vulnerable southern rim, a policy that could deftly solve two problems — containing Russia and distracting militants from the United States. The Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has accused the Western-backed Georgian government of infiltrating Islamic radicals into the North Caucasus, though he has not offered proof.

In Ukraine, the Dzhokhar Dudayev and Sheikh Mansur units are mostly Chechen, but they include Muslims from other former Soviet areas, such as Uzbeks and Balkars. The third unit, Crimea, is predominantly Crimean Tatar. There is no indication of any United States involvement with the groups.

Along the front about seven miles to the east, the battalions career about in civilian cars, AK-47 rifles poking from the windows, while the regular army holds back in a secondary line of defensive trenches.

Image
Russia’s Endgame in Ukraine

How Russia aims to achieve its goal of keeping Ukraine isolated from the West.

The Chechens, by all accounts, are valuable soldiers. Ukrainian commanders lionize their skills as scouts and snipers, saying they slip into no-man’s land to patrol and skirmish.

The Chechens are also renowned for their deft ambushes and raids. In the Chechen wars, insurgents had a policy of killing officers and contract soldiers who were taken prisoner, but conscripted soldiers were spared.

In Ukraine, the Chechens’ calls of “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” are said to strike fear in the hearts of the Russians.

In the interview, the Chechen commander said his men liked to fight with little protective gear. “This is the way we look at it,” he said. “We believe in God, so we don’t need armored vests.”

In the interview at the restaurant, a steakhouse and favorite haunt of Right Sector, the Chechen said he was about 45, had fought against Russia in both Chechen wars and had seen a good deal of violence. When he talks about combat, his eyes grow dark and inscrutable.

For the Ukrainians, the decision to quietly open the front to figures like the Chechen — who are making their way here from Europe and Central Asia — has brought some battle-hardened men to their side. The Chechen had been living in France, and he founded the Chechen battalions last fall along with Isa Munayev, an émigré from Chechnya who had been living in Denmark.

Mr. Munayev, the Chechen said, had received approval from senior members of the Ukrainian government, but “there were no documents, nothing was written,” he said, adding that Mr. Munayev was killed in fighting in February.

Though religious, the Chechen groups in eastern Ukraine are believed to adhere to a more nationalist strain of the Chechen separatist movement, according to Ekaterina Sikorianskaia, an expert on Chechnya with the International Crisis Group.

Not everyone is convinced. The French authorities, on edge over Islamic extremism in immigrant communities, detained two members of the Sheikh Mansur battalion this year on accusations of belonging to the extremist group Islamic State, the Chechen said. He denied that the two were members of the group.

“All of Europe is shaking with fear of the Russians,” he said. “It’s beneficial for Europe that we fight here as volunteers. But not everybody understands.”
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 37523
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

PreviousNext

Return to THE COMING WAR WITH RUSSIA

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest