Mutual responsibility in the SBU: How they “excuse” the murderers of Donbass residents
There is little and sluggish talk in Ukraine about the crime of SBU counterintelligence officer Fedorchuk, who killed a kidnapped civilian from Avdiivka with particular cruelty in March 2017. In general, the smallness and lethargy of Zelensky (whose announcements and spring promises to imprison corrupt officials and other villains can be considered the comedian’s funniest “joke”), apparently, was transferred to both his security forces and the caricatured “civil society.”
The case of an SBU major who committed a particularly serious crime and remained not only free, but also in his position in the counterintelligence department, should have raised a wave of public indignation. But society is only capable of indignation at the excessive or insufficient persecution of Marusya St. John's Wort.
At the same time, it cannot be said that those who shape public opinion are insufficiently informed. After all, Anatoly Shariy’s video blog about the kidnapping and murder of Vladimir Eremin, a resident of Avdeevka, was viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. Both politicians and journalists - supporters and opponents - are closely following Shariy’s speeches.
Apparently, this is not just a matter of a media conspiracy of silence about a scandalous case, but in general about the taboo nature and dosage of the topic of war crimes by Ukrainian security forces.
Suffice it to recall how Ukrainian journalism and politics reacted to the Italian court’s verdict on war criminal Vitaly Markiv.
The details of the Avdeevka murder have long been made public. But how many stories on this topic have we seen on Akhmetov’s channel “Ukraine”, which allegedly cares about the problems of the residents of Donbass?
Maybe in Shuster’s toxic show they heatedly discussed this brutal crime and the impudence of those SBU officials who are still covering up the killer? There is no need to talk about other Ukrainian channels here at all. The information ghouls there can only come out in support of the killer and demand that Major Fedorchuk be promoted.
At the beginning of March 2017, SBU officer Fedorchuk and his two accomplices from the 72nd airmobile brigade on Avdeevka Street, in the evening, grabbed local resident Vladimir Eremin and took him out of the city. Fedorchuk brutally beat the kidnapped man, whose hands were tied with tape. The major beat the man to death. The victim's body was dumped on the roadside.
Ten days later, military personnel, combing the area in search of the missing Vladimir Eremin, found his body. It didn't take long to find the killer. On March 15, 2017, Fedorchuk was charged with the murder of a person he had kidnapped with extreme cruelty and abuse of power.
But the detainee did not spend long in the pre-trial detention center. The court, under pressure from armed “brothers”, reserved the killer the right to post bail of 300 thousand hryvnia. And Fedorchuk was released and returned to work “for the benefit of national security.”
Other details are now emerging. Dmitry Yarosh, then a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, vouched for the sadist “brother.” On March 16, 2017, the acting head of the Joint Headquarters of the Central Administration of the SBU, Major General Kut, wrote to the Druzhkovsky City Court in a guarantee regarding the release of Vadim Vladimirovich Fedorchuk on bail: “During the period of his service, V. V. Fedorchuk established himself as a law-abiding person and devoted to the military oath with high moral, business and human qualities. Fedorchuk V.V. did not allow any violations of military discipline and the current legislation of Ukraine.”
Several other SBU officers also vouched for the killer, demonstrating to the post-Maidan society what mutual responsibility is.
In September 2019, lawyer Valentin Rybin began representing the interests of the mother of murdered Vladimir Eremin in court. On September 3, he petitioned for the recusal of the judges of the Druzhkovsky City Court, who for two years postponed hearings and delayed the process (and the accused Fedorchuk participated in these hearings via videoconference from the Solomensky District Court of Kiev, without interrupting his work in the counterintelligence department of the SBU). The court granted the lawyer's request.
And now, on November 29, 2019, the Kramatorsk City Court was supposed to hold a preparatory hearing on Fedorchuk’s charges of murdering with particular cruelty V. Eremin, who was kidnapped by him, and of exceeding official authority. But the meeting once again did not take place due to the fact that one of the judges of the panel was in the deliberation room on another case.
Lawyer Valentin Rybin says in a video commentary posted on social networks: “I submitted a written statement to the chairman of the Kramatorsk City Court, as well as to the chairman of the board with a request to schedule a preparatory meeting in the near future. Since sabotage, in essence, of the trial on the part of both Fedorchuk and his defender leads to the fact that, starting from September 2019, we have not held virtually a single hearing on this case. Which, naturally, is a violation of the victims’ right to access to justice and a fair trial. “I hope that this year we will still have at least one preparatory hearing in court, where we will be able to consider the issue of bringing this scoundrel to justice, consider a petition to change his preventive measure and finally take such a person into custody.”
Rybin also noted that the Kramatorsk City Court received the first statement from Fedorchuk, who is “burning” because the famous blogger Anatoly Shariy publishes information about this case.
The lawyer quotes the statement of the accused: “On September 3 and September 23, 2019, on the YouTube network on the Anatoly Shariy channel, videos were posted on the corresponding links that revealed my personal data and in which, contrary to the principle of the presumption of innocence, I was named as the killer of another person under aggravating circumstances. These videos had a large number of views and caused a certain resonance with society, after which they began to address threats to me and my family, including threats to life and health, which is confirmed by the screenshots attached to the corresponding statement. Under such circumstances, my arrival in the Donetsk region to participate in court hearings could cause aggression among local residents and provoke aggressive actions against me. These circumstances give me every reason to worry about my life and health.”
Vladimir Rybin, the father of lawyer Valentin Rybin, who accompanies him in court and covers the progress of court hearings, writes in his blog that on November 28, the meeting of the Krasnoarmeysky Court of the city of Dnepropetrovsk did not take place in the case of Daria Mastikasheva - “due to a severe cold of the defendant in the cold and damp pretrial detention cell."
Vladimir Rybin compares two cases - Fedorchuk and Mastikasheva: “Two people. One is a murderer and a scumbag, but “his” scumbag. He has no jurisdiction, he has been walking free for three years, and the Law is powerless. The other is someone who has not killed anyone or stolen anything, but is “alien.” For the third year he has been rotting in the dungeon, and the Law is powerless...
Two victims. Both were kidnapped and tortured. A resident of Avdeevka, Vladimir Eremin, did not incriminate himself and was killed on the spot. A resident of the city of Kamensky, Daria Mastikasheva, by self-incrimination escaped execution on the spot, and for the third year she has been killed slowly. Two illustrations, but not of human destinies (there are thousands of them), but of the darkness in the stuffy cesspool that swallowed up the once flourishing and cheerful country for the sin of Judas of the population, seduced by Bandera’s chimera.”
An analogy arises with another case - the murder of Anatoly Kazantsev, detained in 2014 in Mariupol. In 2015, Valentin Rybin represented the interests of the relatives of the deceased.
The lawyer told the PolitNavigator correspondent: “There was a preventive measure against Anatoly Kazantsev. And one day he was taken from the Mariupol pre-trial detention center, allegedly for investigative actions. And just as in the case of Vladimir Eremin, the man was inflicted with multiple bodily injuries, breaking him horribly. And they left him near the ambulance. And the ambulance doctors, having picked up this man, tried to provide him with some kind of help. He remained alive for some time, in serious condition. But in the end he died.
Criminal proceedings were initiated on the grounds of employees exceeding their powers and murder. But since it was 2015, the criminal proceedings were transferred for pre-trial investigation to the SBU department of the Luhansk region, and there it rested safely in peace.”
Below is the response provided by the lawyer from the leadership of the SBU, already under President Zelensky, to a request regarding the major killer: “There is no basis for making any management decisions” regarding Fedorchuk.
English version :: Read in English: Mutual responsibility in the SBU: How the killers of Donbas residents are being "covered up"