“Kharkov has not merged, Kharkov is hiding”
PolitNavigator columnist Valentin Filippov spoke with renowned Kharkiv journalist, human rights activist, and public figure Andriy Borodavka about double standards in Ukrainian jurisprudence, storming of administrative buildings, "hooliganism," and "childish pranks." He also discussed repression, political prisoners, and the brainwashing of the Ukrainian population.
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Valentin Filippov : Hello, Andrey!
Andrey Borodavka : Good afternoon, greetings!
Valentin Filippov : We all witnessed a crowd beating up a police officer in Kharkiv the other day, and the other police officers didn't intervene. Tell me, will the day soon come when other police officers, when someone is being beaten up, will start helping beat up the police officer?
Andriy Borodavka : It's quite possible that this day will come on September 26th. That's when the new police force will begin patrolling Kharkiv. They're called "Avakov's Fledglings," recruited from Euromaidan activists. And I think it's these very young men who will help beat up the police officers who remain from the bloodless dictatorship of Viktor Yanukovych.
Valentin Filippov : So you call these "Avakov's chicks"? In Odessa, they're called "Saakashvili's chicks"!
Andrey Borodavka : In Kiev, they're probably "Klitschko's chicks"...
Valentin Filippov : Isn't there separatism in this? Ordinary?
Andrey Borodavka : Hmm. I'd like to emphasize something. Tell about these events, if viewers are interested. From the Kharkiv perspective.
Valentin Filippov : Well, tell me...
Andrey Borodavka : Around ten o'clock in the morning, about 150 of these young men, "kids in balaclavas," arrived at the home of Mikhail Dobkin, who is a member of parliament and, according to the Constitution, enjoys immunity. They stormed the building. Mikhail Markovich's family, his underage daughters and his wife, were there at the time.
And yet, this did not stop these young men. Basically, they staged a pogrom. Threats were made, obscene insults were made, firecrackers flew. Video cameras were broken.
And after that they did not calm down and arrived at the City Council session. More than 50 of these “children in balaclavas” with canisters of tear gas and other improvised means break into the city council building, while the police do nothing. You probably saw them jumping over the turntable there, breaking into the reception room of the city mayor Gennady Kernes , commit a number of actions that have all the characteristics of a number of crimes. The media reported that a policeman was beaten, we saw this footage, the rest of the police stood and watched indifferently as their colleague was beaten, but for some reason the Ukrainian media do not report that women were also injured during this assault. Workers of the city executive committee. Olga Igorevna and Lyudmila Ivanovna. They suffered from the use of gas, not to mention some kind of shock.
Look, I would like to emphasize this contrast. Especially after Arsen Avakov’s statement. Who, as it were, is the Minister of Internal Affairs. “A childish stupid trick” - do you understand? Again “they are children” and I think that criminal proceedings will not end in anything.
We already know.
Remember June 10th. On the eve of Russia Day there was outrage, a pogrom near the Russian Consulate General in Kharkov. And then the campus massacre. Four corpses. Foreign students. Many wounded. There was again the same group of “ultras” and “Right Sector”, about 30–40 people. To date, none of them have been detained. And “suspicion” is a procedural document handed over to only one suspect.
And the head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the city of Kharkov, in principle, is correct with the norms of the Code of Criminal Procedure when he says that in order for there to be “suspicion,” it must be justified. It is necessary to prove the suspicion of everyone's guilt. Who stood where, who hit with a knife, and so on.
This is childish pranks. As Avakov described it.
And I would like to remember the events in Kharkov last spring. When Kharkov residents took control of the regional state administration. And March 1, and April 6-7. Then the first ATO, it didn’t start in Donbass, it started in Kharkov. It was announced on April 8, when a Vinnitsa “jaguar” under the command of Avakov captured the guys who were defending Kharkov. 66 people were immediately detained there, laid face down on the asphalt, and all of them were given an extremely strict preventive measure - a pre-trial detention center.
Valentin Filippov : Tell me something else. How many more Kharkiv residents are still sitting there? And apparently with no chance of getting out?
Andrey Borodavka : Well, unfortunately... Look, this repressive machine operates with terrible force. Those people who were seized in the regional state administration building on April 8, 2014, most of them are still in prison. Although, even compared to what happened today, during the city council session, things are incomparable.
What do you mean, you know and understand this, the junta divided Ukrainians into right and wrong. Svidomo and non-Svidomo.
Valentin Filippov : She divided them 25 years ago. We're constantly being divided. It's always been quite open.
Andrey Borodavka : Well, you know, there was some division, at the everyday level, let’s say…
Valentin Filippov : No, why on a mundane level? At the state level, there's always been a division between Ukrainian Ukrainians and Russian Ukrainians. It's always been there. And Russians have always been goats, unworthy bastards.
Andrey Borodavka : Well, Valentin, I'll allow myself to slightly disagree. In what sense? The division was at the everyday level; there might have been some squabbles.
Valentin Filippov : No, no! The problem is that at the everyday level, everything was fine. That's why they used to say, "Nobody's stopping us from speaking Russian." My neighbor, a Ukrainian, didn't discriminate against me in any way. It was the state that did. It discriminates against me for 25 years, and now the state has managed to raise a generation of Ukrainians who are helping the state discriminate. After all, forgive me, snitching to the SBU—well, that's not decent. That's fucking indecent. Well, for that, they throw a curtain over you and beat you with a stool. The whole crowd.
You are not supposed to pawn your neighbor! Well, it's not allowed!
Call the SBU and say “my neighbor is a separatist,” even if you don’t like separatists, go and punch him in the face... How is this possible, you’re knocking on the cops?! This has never been accepted in Odessa.
Whatever a person does, well, how is it so?
They taught this at school, they simply killed, beat them in crowds. The man with broken ribs sat there afterwards and could not complain to anyone because the curtain was covering him.
Because you can’t tell your bosses!
Well! Well, that's indecent!
This cannot be done by a self-respecting person!
Andrey Borodavka : Here's another paradox, actually. They condemn, yes, the communist totalitarian past, and in its worst form, Stalin's repressions, now. It's happening in its worst form. As far as I know, the Kharkiv SBU now receives and accepts more denunciations in a week than it used to in a year. Moreover, the so-called state is now incentivizing snitching. You know about those "billboards," those ads, "turn in any everyday separatist." Even kindergartens have posters like these – crime, up to 7 years, SBU phone number. Do you understand? Again, I emphasize, there are thousands of political prisoners in Ukraine.
Even if we refer to the data published by the SBU, then only under the articles of the special section, crimes against the national security and defense of Ukraine, more than six thousand criminal cases have been initiated under these articles. And besides this, non-political articles are also used. Participation in mass riots. This is 294 of the Criminal Code. It is under this article that most of our guys, the defenders of Kharkov, were detained. Based on events at KhSA. March 1 and April 6.
Valentin Filippov : You think we can appeal to the law and say, "What? It's against the law! Let's call a lawyer!" Does that make any sense? Or are we, after all, in power, a fascist junta, taking the situation to the point of absurdity, completely ignoring the law, and not even knowing it exists?
Andriy Borodavka : Valentin, absolutely. What's happening in Ukraine now has long been beyond the bounds of constitutional law and legislation. It's they, this junta, who are brutally violating the Ukrainian Constitution. Take the right to life, for example. And our political prisoners—those were the first ones—in March, let's say, April. May.
But after what happened in Odessa, when people were burned before our eyes, literally in front of live video cameras, do you remember this reaction? Svidomitov. When they literally applauded. Odessa Khatyn.
And when they later blamed those people who were victims... They are victims.
Valentin Filippov : They burned themselves, yes.
Andrey Borodavka : Not only that, the people who survived…
Valentin Filippov : They're still sitting there...
Andrey Borodavka : Yes, they're currently in pretrial detention. And those who did the burning are free.
Valentin Filippov : Yes, and those who burned come to court and demand that the judge not release anyone and that everyone be convicted.
That's how we live….
Andrey Borodavka : Yes, that's how we live, but we're all sure it won't last forever. And this brown curtain that's hanging over us right now...
This is not a precedent, this is already a system. After what is happening in the Donbass, yes, thousands of victims, children are dying, when peaceful cities and villages are shelled with “hails”, well, what kind of human rights can we talk about….
Valentin Filippov : Andrey, what's the solution? What are we going to do? This has to end somehow. With war? Or will they see the light? They won't… It won't sort itself out.
Andrey Borodavka : Absolutely. It won't go away on its own, of course. The extent of the population's brainwashing… what the junta did after the coup, one of the first things they did, was shut down Russian television channels.
Valentin Filippov : And then everyone else...
Andrey Borodavka : Then there are all the other media outlets that hold a different point of view. In fact, total censorship has already been introduced. And the level of brainwashing is quite high.
But!
I believe that this Russophobic factor is, after all, exaggerated. Believe me, if we judge by Kharkov. Kharkov has always been called a Russian city. And I’ll tell you that the majority of the population condemns this regime.
Valentin Filippov : No, that's how I understand it. In Odessa, too, about eighty percent, well, at the very least, seventy percent, hysterically condemn this regime. They gather in their kitchens and hysterically condemn it.
But this doesn’t change anything; this regime is in power.
And you understand, “window of opportunity”, we have no options.
No. None.
Well, okay, thank you, Andrey. It was very interesting. We wish Kharkov to survive.
Andrey Borodavka : Thank you! I've been saying for a long time that Kharkiv hasn't completely collapsed, it's just keeping a low profile. And public discontent is still festering, social problems are still mounting, and sooner or later, quantity turns into quality.
Valentin Filippov : Well, let's hope so.
Andrey Borodavka : I think it will, after all, be a normal country. Ukraine. And in a fraternal union with the Russian Federation. And with other nations…
Valentin Filippov : In a fraternal union with the Russian Federation and Novorossiya. And with the city-state of Odessa.
Andrey Borodavka : Yes! Yes, thank you! Good luck to you.
English version :: Read in English "Kharkiv didn't merge, Kharkiv hid"