Have the Ukrainian authorities begun persecuting volunteers?

Persecuting volunteer by the Ukrainian authorities is an extremely dubious and threatening situation that has to be responded to.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) publicly announced it had “neutralized a criminal organization that was terrorizing the people of Kyiv under the guise of volunteers. The group was headed by the criminal authority Leshiy”. And then, of course, about raiding and the russian trail.

In fact, on February 1, the SBU searched the apartment of Denys Dorychenko, the co-founder of the "Karpatska Sich" and "Legion D", comrade of the legendary cyborg Oleh Kutsyn, who died heroically on June 19, 2022, fighting for Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the SBU is persecuting his comrades. Besides Dorychenko, searches took place in the homes of over 20 volunteers. Many were not at home - they are holding back the enemy in the hottest points of the front. Several people were detained, including a Territorial Defence fighter with the call sign Leshiy. By the way, he is said to have held defense in the SBU building on Volodymyrska Street during the first two most difficult weeks of the full-scale invasion, along with other fighters, at the request of the service leadership. For some reason, a large number of civil servants were in western Ukraine at that time. 

It is hardly a coincidence that all this happens simultaneously with high-profile investigative actions against well-known social allergens — I. Kolomoisky, A. Avakov, V. Stolar, which distracts the public from another attack on the volunteer movement.

Karpatska Sich and Legion D are very well-known parts of this movement. For example, FC Dynamo Kyiv constantly provides assistance to Legion D. More than 300 volunteers from Sich and Legion died defending Ukraine.

If the SBU officers have legitimate claims against some representatives of the volunteer battalions - please, no one should obstruct the investigation, sort it out. But calling the volunteer formations “criminal organizations” is, in fact, stigmatizing all their soldiers as criminals... This is a blatant disrespect to those fighters of Legion D, Karpatska Sich and other Territorial Defence formations, who are destroying invaders at the front at the cost of their lives.

The question automatically arises: when did Ukraine manage to abolish the presumption of innocence? Not to mention the fact that the SBU must start with its own cleansing and take legal actions against their employees who acted in favor of the enemy, for example, in Kharkiv and Kherson.

Yes, we have already seen the cynical practice after the occupation of Crimea and Donbas of how our state "thanks" its volunteer defenders. But now there is neither victory nor even a partial ceasefire, as in 2015. Isn’t it too early to prosecute the volunteer movement?

Alexandr Kochetkov.

Ukraine Front Lines

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1 Comment
  1. Terry 1 year ago

    This needs to be sorted or their will be an international backlash.Presumption of innocence is paramount.

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