Caucasian prisoners. The Case of the Una-Unso Members Mykola Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh: Reference Nikolay Karpyuk
In the photo, right-wing brothers Dmitry Yarosh and Nikolai Karpyuk
Another exposure on the topic "Pravoseki are Putin's agents" from the Ukrainian media. Excerpts from an article on a Ukrainian site znaj.ua "FSB detains Ukrainians on old lists of nationalist parties":
On October 12, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Chechnya began considering the case of detained Ukrainians Nikolai Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation accuses our citizens of killing the Russian military during the Russian-Chechen war in 1994-1995. They face life imprisonment.
Defenders for Nikolai Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh say that their clients deny all charges and claim that they were not in Chechnya at all in 1994-1995.
"Know" found out the details of the detention of Mykola Karpyuk.
Let's go to Putin
Karpiuk himself, in a letter to the International Court of Human Rights, described his detention as follows:
"On March 17, 2014, I was detained by Russian special services on the border of Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Together with Fursa Vyacheslav and his driver Igor, we went to Moscow to negotiate with the leadership of the Russian Federation. The meeting was organized by Fursa. According to him, acquaintances had personal ties with Vladimir Putin. My trip was coordinated with the leadership of the Right Sector.
After being detained at a checkpoint on the Russian border, the three of us were sent to the Bryansk branch of the FSB in a temporary detention facility. The FSB officers held several conversations at which we spoke about our trip. One of these "meetings" was attended by a representative of the Presidential Administration of Russia.
On March 20, 2014, upon arrival in the city of Essentuki, an employee of the investigative committee stated that I was detained on suspicion of committing crimes on the territory of the Russian Federation in the period from 1994 to 2001 - in particular, in participating in hostilities in Chechnya. And in 15 days, Fursa was released along with the driver.
Skeletons in the closet "Right Sector"
Journalist and former chairman Vladimir Boyko of the Advisory Council under the Prosecutor General's Office published his version of what happened.
After the escape of Yanukovych, the leaders of the "PS" decided to turn their association into a political party in order to take part in the elections. But only those parties that had existed for more than a year were allowed to race.
According to Vladimir Boyko, it was easier to do such a manipulation with the party from UNA-UNSO. At that time, it was actually headed by one of the founders of the Right Sector, Nikolai Karpyuk. But Karpyuk, a long-term member of the UNS, a political prisoner from the Kuchma era, was against it.
“In fact, Karpyuk ended up on the territory of Russia not on March 21, but on March 17, 2014. He was taken out of Ukraine and handed over directly into the hands of the FSB officers not by some mysterious spies, but by the head of the Right Sector headquarters in the Kyiv region Vyacheslav Fursa.
It is clear that this was done by agreement with the Russian special service. Thus, the FSB removed Karpyuk so that he would not interfere with the implementation of the plans of the Russian Federation in Ukraine," Volodymyr Boyko explained.
On March 22, a congress was held at which the name of the party was changed, and Dmitry Yarosh was chosen as the head of the PS.
Four versions of one witness
"Know" turned for comment to a member of the central wire of the party "Right Sector" Andrei Bondarenko.
“Mykola Karpyuk and I have been friends since 1994. I know him as a decisive and punctual person. His disappearances are interpreted as an abduction.
On March 22, we met with him at 10:00 am. Karpyuk was responsible for the political component, so I prepared all the papers for Nikolai regarding the development of the party. This should have been discussed on the eve of the congress.
But on the 22nd Karpyuk did not appear. I called my mobile. At first, the calls were dropped, and then they wrote back in Russian, something like "I'm busy." We started sounding the alarm, because Nikolai never wrote in Russian, "Bondarenko recalls.
Andrey suggests that in order for Nikolai Karpyuk to enter the territory of Russia, the special services could use psychotropic drugs.
"After the kidnapping of Karpyuk, Vyacheslav Fursa spoke four times about the detention and all four times the versions were different. Andriy Bondarenko himself does not trust the words of his former colleague, because now Fursa is "attached" to the pro-Russian movement of Viktor Medvedchuk and his battalion brotherhood. It was after this that he expelled from the ranks of the PS.
"We held actions near the Russian Embassy in Kyiv and our Foreign Ministry, wrote a statement to the police that a citizen of Ukraine had disappeared. Our officials sent inquiries to Russian Federation. However, they are ignored there. And our investigators had not even submitted an inquiry by that time - whether Fursa's car had crossed the state border. I did it. According to the official data of the border service, he crossed," Andrei Bondarenko said.
Now members of the "Right Sector" are looking for witnesses on the territory of Ukraine who could explain that during the Chechen war Nikolai was on the territory of Ukraine.
The journalists could not contact Vyacheslav Fursa.
Mykola Karpyuk's wife Elena admitted to "Know" that she had no information regarding the details of her husband's detention.
“I didn’t know if he was alive or not. Now we only communicate through lawyers. My husband forbade me to go to court in Russia, even if he dies there,” the woman says.
According to her, she does not believe in the involvement of "PS" in the abduction of her husband, but she does not communicate with Nikolai's former brothers.
“We don’t feel any moral support from them. If Nikolai was here, he wouldn’t sit silently while his brothers are being judged,” Elena admits.
About Nikolai Karpyuk
The famous Ukrainian nationalist Mykola Andronovich Karpyuk was born on May 24, 1964 in the village of Veliky Zhitin, Rivne region. Here is what they write about him in Ukrainian sources:
In 1981-1982 He worked as a turner at the Gazotron plant in Rivne. In 1982-1984 Served in the army. In 1984-1985. He worked as a turner at the Rivne flax mill, and in 1985-1986. - a turner at the Rivne plant of tractor spare parts. Further, until 1990, he again worked as a turner at the Gazotron plant. Then he was a correspondent for the newspaper "Nashe delo". He headed the Rivne regional organization of the Ukrainian National Assembly. In the early 1990s, together with his brothers from the UNSO, he was a participant in the events in Transnistria. He also took part in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict.
In the winter of 2000-2001, UNA-UNSO took an active part in the actions "Ukraine without Kuchma". As a result of mass clashes in front of the presidential administration building on March 9, 2001, 18 UNA-UNSO members were arrested and put on trial. All of them received different (up to five years) terms of imprisonment. On November 18, 2001, Mykola Karpyuk was elected head of the party. Together with other 17 UNS members, he was imprisoned, from which he was released in October 2004.
With the beginning of the Euromaidan, he joined the Right Sector. An ally of the UNA-UNSO member Oleksandr Muzychko (Sashka Bily), who was killed in March 2014.
By the way, for some reason it is written on the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine that Karpyuk disappeared in the ATO zone in November, and not in March 2014:
The press service of the Russian Investigative Committee reports:
"In December 1994, while on the territory of Ukraine, Karpyuk, Muzychko and other persons took an active part in the organization of stable armed groups, consisting of the most radical members of the UNA - UNSO, for their subsequent participation in the armed conflict on the territory of Russia on the side of the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic Ichkeria.
Depending on the role incriminated to the defendants - Klykh and Karpyuk, they were charged under parts 1 and 2 of Article 209 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (leading a gang or participating in it; up to 15 years in a colony), as well as under paragraphs "c", "h", "n" of Article 102 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (premeditated murder of two or more persons in connection with the performance of their official duty, committed by a group of persons by prior agreement) and part 2 of Article 15 - paragraphs "c", "h", "n" of Article 102 of the Criminal Code RSFSR (attempt on the same crime). "
P.S. Zrada again! Patriots from the "Right Sector" turned out to be Putin's agents, they were taken to Russia and handed over to the FSB of their brother, so that he would not interfere with them in the implementation of the plans of the Russian Federation in Ukraine. And now, when he is in the "dungeons of the FSB", they completely forgot about his brother and do not provide him with any "moral support".
Let me remind you that it is this one, handed over by the "warm" in the hands of the FSB to the FSB, right-wing brothers, and is the main accuser of Yatsenyuk that he killed Russians in Chechnya :-))
Image copyright UKrinform Image caption Rallies in support of Ukrainians arrested in Chechnya were repeatedly held near the Russian Embassy in Ukraine
On September 15, the Supreme Court of Chechnya will start considering the case of Nikolai Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh, who are accused of killing Russians during the Russian-Chechen war in 1994-1995.
The punishment for these charges is life imprisonment.
The Investigative Committee of Russia (TFR) reported that it has evidence that Nikolai Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh "arrived from Ukraine to the territory of the Chechen Republic in order to attack and kill citizens, military personnel, on the side of gangs led by Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil Basayev, as well as law enforcement officers of the Russian Federation.
This group, according to the ICR, also included Oleksandr Muzychko (member of the Right Sector, shot dead in March 2014 during detention by law enforcement officers. - Ed.), Dmitry Yarosh, Alexander Malofeev and other persons who at that time, according to Russian investigators, were members of the UNA-UNSO.
"Nikolay Karpyuk, together with Alexander Muzychko, led a gang called Viking," the ICR said in a statement.
According to investigators, in December 1994-January 1995, they allegedly repeatedly took an active part in clashes with servicemen of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of the presidential palace, Minutka Square and the railway station in Grozny.
"During these battles, they killed at least 30 servicemen and at least 13 servicemen inflicted injuries of varying severity," the report says.
A few days ago, the head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bastrykin, ranked Arseniy Yatsenyuk among the Viking members and voiced identical accusations against him.
The defense of Nikolai Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh claims that their clients deny all charges and assure that they were not in Chechnya at all in 1994-1995.
The ICR notes that suspected Ukrainian citizens are not covered by the amnesty announced by President Putin for militants who fought in Chechnya, as they are accused of committing particularly serious crimes.
"Carpo"
Image copyright UNIAN Image caption For a year and a half, the consul or lawyers were never allowed to see Nikolai Karpyuk, his wife says“For a long time after Nikolai disappeared, my friends and I believed that he was not alive. But I still felt alive,” says Elena Karpyuk, wife of Nikolai Karpyuk.
For a year and a half - since the day of detention on March 21, 2014 - neither lawyers nor consular staff can see him, since the investigating authorities in Russia do not issue permission.
Elena learns bits of information about her husband only when the Ukrainian consulate in Rostov-on-Don receives written refusals to requests to visit Nikolai Karpyuk.
So Elena recently found out that now the man is not in Essentuki, but in the pre-trial detention center of Chelyabinsk, allegedly undergoing a medical examination.
Mykola Karpyuk (nickname "Karpo") was born in the Rivne region in 1964. After serving in the army, he worked as a turner at various enterprises in the Rivne region.
He headed the Rivne regional organization of the Ukrainian National Assembly (UNA). Together with other members of UNA-UNSO, he was a participant in the events in Transnistria and the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict in the early 90s. This information is confirmed by the then leaders of the organization, in particular Igor Mazur.
In the early 2000s, Mykola Karpyuk was an active participant in the "Ukraine without Kuchma" campaign. Together with 19 activists, he was arrested and sentenced to four years in prison, served 2.5 years in prison. After Viktor Yushchenko came to power, the charges were dropped, and the president awarded Karpyuk with the Order For Courage.
Subsequently, he became deputy chairman of UNA-UNSO Roman Shukhevych.
During the events on the Maidan in 2013-2014, he was one of those who created the "Right Sector" together with Dmitry Yarosh.
The Right Sector believes that Mykola Karpiuk was kidnapped, tentatively, on the territory of the Chernihiv region in March 2014 and taken to Russia. However, his wife says she doesn't know exactly what happened.
klykh
Image copyright www.vk.com Image caption Lawyer Stanislav Klykha alleges that her client is being tortured. Photo from Stanislav's VKontakte pageUnlike Mykola Karpyuk, who is considered one of the founders of the right-wing radical movement in Ukraine, Stanislav Klykh's political experience is much less.
In the early 90s, he participated in the People's Movement, but then moved away from politics. Later, when Mykola Karpyuk, Igor Mazur and other members of the UNA-UNSO were serving sentences for participating in the action "Ukraine without Kuchma", he joined the UNA-UNSO and headed the Kiev branch of the party.
Igor Mazur told BBC Ukraine that after the convicts were acquitted, Stanislav was expelled from the party.
The man graduated from Kyiv National University them. Shevchenko, a historian by profession, worked as a freelance journalist.
Stanislav's mother told the 1 + 1 TV channel that in August 2014, the son went to Orel to see his girlfriend, whom he met in the Crimea and who was allegedly seven months pregnant.
Stanislav managed to call home and said that he was detained at the hotel, allegedly for disobeying the police, and during the first interrogation, law enforcement officers asked if he was a member of the Right Sector.
Subsequently, Stanislav's parents lost contact with the girl.
IN SIZO
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that the investigating authorities did not allow consular workers to see Mykola Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh. The department even handed the Russian consul in Kyiv a note of protest in connection with "a gross violation of the rights of those arrested"; Ukrainian Ombudsman Valeria Lutkovskaya also addressed her Russian colleagues.
According to the statements of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the official bodies of Russia also did not provide information about the place of their detention on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Only the names of Savchenko and Sentsov are heard. In the meantime, we ourselves are looking for lawyers and funds to pay for their work, we ourselves are preparing a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights Elena Karpyuk, wife of Nikolai Karpyuk
Stanislav Klykh's lawyer Marina Dubrovina managed to meet with him only in June of this year. In a commentary to the BBC Russian Service, she stated that the investigating authorities used torture on her client.
Marina Dubrovina says that Klykh is being "knocked out" to testify about participation in hostilities in Chechnya. She does not rule out that the information about the alleged stay of Arseniy Yatsenyuk in Chechnya, Stanislav Klykh or Nikolai Karpyuk (which was stated by Russian media) could have been given under torture or under the influence of psychotropic substances.
Nothing is known about the state of Nikolay Karpyuk, because, according to his wife, neither lawyers nor consular employees have seen him for a year and a half.
However, the ICR, at the request of the BBC Russian Service regarding the treatment of those under investigation, whom Ukraine considers political prisoners, stated that they "regularly receive medical assistance, they are visited by both Russian and Ukrainian public figures."
"Information about the use of torture does not correspond to reality," the response says. "When investigating criminal cases, the Investigative Committee relies solely on facts, the results of examinations, on the evidence collected, that is, it works within the framework of the current legislation, being outside of politics," the TFR said.
Evidence after 20 years
Image copyright Reuters Image caption UNA-UNSO activists do not hide the fact that about 20 members of the organization fought in Chechnya20 years after the end of the war in Chechnya, lawyers for Nikolai Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh must prove that their clients were not in prison in 1994-1995. Chechen Republic.
The then leader of the UNA-UNSO, Dmitry Korchinsky, assured in a commentary to BBC Ukraine that both suspects were not in Chechnya.
One of the UNA-UNSO activists, Igor Mazur, who does not deny that he participated in hostilities on the side of Dzhokhar Dudayev, believes that it will be easy to prove this fact in court, but he is sure that this evidence is not of interest to the Russian investigation and the Russian court.
"Chechnya is not a neighboring region. It was practically impossible to get there through the territory of Russia. We got there for about two weeks. Russian investigators say that Karpyuk and Klykh "fought" in Chechnya from December 1994 to January 1995. That is, this period New Year holidays. There are many witnesses who can prove where the guys were during this period," Igor Mazur said in a commentary to BBC Ukraine.
He also said that in those years Mykola Karpyuk was the leader of the Rivne UNA-UNSO organization, his deputy was Oleksandr Muzychko ("Sasha Bely"). The latter was the commander of the Viking unit in Chechnya, while Karpyuk was engaged in political work in Rovno.
Elena Karpyuk also says that it is possible to find evidence of her husband's stay in Ukraine, but she does not believe that the court in Grozny will take it into account. According to her, this evidence should have been attached to the case during the investigation.
"Those who can testify in favor of my husband cannot come to court in Grozny, because these are mostly people who were then members of the UNA-UNSO," Elena notes.
Chechnya is not a neighboring region. It was almost impossible to get there through the territory of Russia Igor Mazur, UNA-UNSO activist
In her opinion, the Ukrainian police should have collected this evidence as part of the criminal case initiated on his application. After the disappearance of her husband, she wrote a statement, the police opened a case on the fact of the disappearance of a person, then reclassified the case under the murder article.
"Now they want to close the case altogether, although they could collect evidence of my husband's innocence to take it to court in Grozny," she says.
Stanislav Klykh's lawyer, Marina Dubrovina, said in an interview with Radio Liberty that all the accusations against Karpyuk and Klykh are based mainly on the testimony of Alexander Malofeev, who fought in Chechnya and allegedly named other citizens of Ukraine - only 15-20 names.
Malofeev himself, according to his lawyer, is serving a sentence for other crimes, but is actively cooperating with investigators in the case of the participation of Ukrainian citizens in the battles on the side of Chechnya.
Secondary matter?
The Security Service of Ukraine recently announced that Mykola Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh were included in the list for a prisoner exchange. However, Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin said on September 8 that the Foreign Ministry was not negotiating the exchange of political prisoners.
Elena Karpyuk believes that the Ukrainian authorities do not pay due attention to the case of "Chechen prisoners" - as it happens with the cases of Nadezhda Savchenko and Oleg Sentsov.
"This case is always of a secondary nature. Only the names of Savchenko and Sentsov are heard. In the meantime, we ourselves are looking for lawyers and funds to pay for their work, we ourselves are preparing a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights," she said in an interview with BBC Ukraine.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin has repeatedly stated that Ukraine is making equal efforts to release both the world-famous Nadezhda Savchenko and Oleg Sentsov and other Ukrainian citizens imprisoned in Russia.
The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation notes the absence of a political component in the case of Karpyuk and Klykh, but some in Ukraine see this as the desire of the Russian authorities to arrange a public punishment of representatives of right-wing political forces.
"All the cases, not just these two guys, brought against citizens of Ukraine in Russia, have political overtones. We can assume in advance that the verdicts will be guilty, it is useless to talk about fair justice," said Andriy Didenko, program coordinator of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group. this is a propaganda, information campaign aimed at society. In this case, Russia is trying to demonstrate how it punishes "nationalists" and "radicals". The worst thing is that the Russians believe all this."
The former head of the UNA-UNSO told under what torture the Russian investigation forced him to testify against the Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk
On October 12, the Supreme Court of Chechnya will begin jury selection in the case of 51-year-old Nikolai Karpyuk and 41-year-old Stanislav Klykh, whom the Russian Investigative Committee accuses of fighting against Russian army in detachments of Ukrainian nationalists along with Chechen fighters.
The “case of Ukrainian Viking fighters” who allegedly fought against Russian military personnel in Chechnya in 1994 is one of the most absurd and terrible stories that has happened to Ukrainian citizens arrested in Russia after the annexation of Crimea.
Open Russia published an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights by one of the defendants in this case, Stanislav Klykh, where he talks about what he confessed to under torture, which he was subjected to for several weeks. In particular, he testified that he fought in Chechnya together with Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Dmitry Yarosh and other Ukrainians who now hold various government posts in Ukraine. Klykh was detained in August 2014 and became the second defendant in the “case of Ukrainian Viking fighters”. Why Vikings? That was the name of the detachment of Ukrainian nationalists, which, according to the prosecution, included Klykh and Mykola Karpyuk.
Mykola Karpyuk is a well-known Ukrainian nationalist who led the UNA-UNSO* until this movement turned into the Right Sector*. He was detained in Russia on March 17, 2014, and until September 2015 there was almost no information about him. Neither lawyers, nor relatives, nor representatives of the Ukrainian consulate in Russia, nor Russian human rights activists could get through to him. His name was not listed in the database of prisoners of the Russian prison department.
For almost two years, Nikolai Karpyuk was like " iron mask"Under Louis XIV, who was kept in various prisons and was not shown to anyone.
When the case was transferred to the Supreme Court of Chechnya, the lawyer managed to go on a date with Karpyuk, he was able to talk to him, and Karpyuk wrote an appeal to the ECHR, in which he described his story in detail, on 8 pages, in neat, almost student handwriting - about how how they detained him, how they tortured him, how they hid him from everyone. About how a year and a half of his life turned into a real hell.
This story is written somehow calmly and casually, or something. But if you read carefully, then behind every line you can feel the horror that this person experienced. And you vividly imagine that this can happen to anyone. And somehow it's all very simple. Everyday. Scary - because the people who did it were not afraid of anything. They told Nikolai Karpyuk that "Russia is not a country where human rights are respected."
And one more thing: the people who detained talked to Karpyuk, interrogated him without lawyers and tortured him, threatened that they would also torture his wife and son. They are absolutely sure that it will pass with impunity; they do not give their real names and surnames.
What for? I do not have an answer to this question - simply because I have not yet been able to speak with the investigators who were in charge of this case. So far, I have not been able to and will hardly be able to ask this question to the heads of the investigative department in the Investigative Committee, who supervised this case. So far, I have not been able to, and it is unlikely that I will be able to, put this question to those FSB officers who were in charge of the operational support of this case.
One thing is clear to me: the price of all the confessions obtained in this case, forced out under torture, is zero.
I would very much like the jurors, who will be selected in the Supreme Court of Chechnya on October 12, to learn about this and understand this.
I know quite a lot about how jury trials work in Russia. But I have never been to the sessions of the Supreme Court of Chechnya. And I don't know how a jury works in Chechnya.
The only thing I’m sure of is that those Chechens who will be among the jurors in the case of Nikolai Karpyuk and Stanislav Klyk, probably have relatives or close friends who, unlike Karpyuk and Klykh, fought in 1994 on the side of Chechen fighters, as they fought Akhmad Kadyrov, father of current Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.
Fragments of Mykola Karpyuk's appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg
Failed negotiations
“On March 17, 2014, I was detained by Russian special services on the border of Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Together with Vyacheslav Stepanovich Fursa and his driver Igor, we drove to Moscow in a 221-Mercedes S-500 car to negotiate with the leadership of the Russian Federation. The meeting was organized by V.S. Fursa, through his acquaintances, who, according to Fursa, had personal connections with President V.V. Putin.
My trip was discussed by the leadership of the "Legal Sector" of Ukraine, where it was decided to delegate me to that meeting. After being detained at a checkpoint on the Russian border, the three of us were sent to the Bryansk department of the FSB, where they were kept in a temporary detention center. The FSB officers had several conversations with us, at which we spoke about the purpose of our trip. One of these conversations was attended by some representative of the Presidential Administration (Presidential Administration. - Open Russia) of Russia.
On March 20, 2014, in the morning, security officers came into my cell, put chains on my arms and legs, loaded me into a minibus and took me away without explaining anything.
accusation
On the night of March 20-21, we arrived at the Office of the Russian Investigative Committee in Essentuki. Employee of the IC Kurbanov M.A. told me that I was detained on suspicion of committing a crime on the territory of the Russian Federation in the period from 1994 to 2001, for which punishment is provided under Art. 209, part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (creation of a stable armed group, gang). I was accused of participating in hostilities in the Chechen Republic during this period. I was sent to the temporary detention facility in Essentuki. On the evening of March 21, they told me that I was leaving "for a stage". I was blindfolded with a plastic bag, tied with tape, then loaded into a paddy wagon and taken away in an unknown direction.<...>
From excessive squeezing with adhesive tape, my head was swollen and I was not thinking well. After some time, I was dropped off the paddy wagon and taken to the fourth floor of a house. I counted the floors later by the turns of the stairs along which we climbed. Here I was met by a group of people (I don't know how many there were, because my eyes were blindfolded and I couldn't see).
Torture begins
The leader of the group called himself Maxim and told me what they would do to me so that I would confess to the crimes I was accused of. He said that first I would be tortured with electric current and how it would be passed. Then physical violence will be used, if these methods fail, my wife and son will be kidnapped. They will be subjected to the same violence and will still force me to confess to the crimes.
My assurances that I was not in Chechnya were not perceived by them.
My hands were handcuffed behind my back. My feet and hands were tied with ropes, the handcuffs were removed. Clamps were attached to the second toe of the right foot and the middle finger of the right hand. Then they began to pass an electric current through me with different durations: sometimes for tens of seconds, sometimes with instant shocks, sometimes for a long time.
I did not confess to anything, because I did not take part in the hostilities. During the conduct of this kind of ""inquiries"" I was often told: ""You did this"", ""Then you arrived in Grozny and did this and that"", ""There were such and such people.
After a certain time, the torture stopped and I was told that our conversation would continue the next night.
Electrocution and insomnia
I was brought to the temporary detention center, the blindfold was removed from my eyes and taken to the investigation room, where I was locked in a barred compartment measuring 1m x 1m. I was kept in this cell for 4 days and was not allowed to sleep. There was one guard in the room in shifts, who made sure that I did not sleep. I didn't know where I was. I thought that in the temporary detention facility in Essentuki. And only on April 20 from the investigator Kurbanov M.A. I found out that I was in Vladikavkaz.
Through torture with electricity, my fingers became numb. I didn't feel good about them. They took me out for these "procedures" for four nights. The current was passed through different parts of the body: through the whole body, through the heart, through the genitals. They put some kind of needles under my nails, but I didn’t feel pain, probably due to the fact that I didn’t feel my fingers.
On March 25, they once again brought me for "experimentation" (interrogation - Open Russia). This time they didn't tie my legs. Maxim said that they were tired of my stubbornness and he gave the command to seize my son and bring him in order to subject him to the same torture in front of my eyes. He also said that they would bring his wife, if possible. But a son will be enough for them. I said not to touch my son and wife, I am ready to accept the blame and sign all the necessary documents. Maxim asked me to tell him my consciousness. I told what I heard from them during the torture. What happened next, I don't know.
I started delirious. When a person is deprived of sleep, delirium occurs on 4-5 days.
I woke up in a temporary detention cell.
Indications
On the morning of March 26, investigator Petrov came to me. With him, we began to draw up an interrogation protocol. The most humiliating thing was that I had to testify myself. When there were some inaccuracies, significant deviations in my testimony, corrections were made due to the fact that Maxim came to me (at the same time they blindfolded me so that I could not see) and he pointed out to me where I made ""incorrect"" testimony and explanations.
“Nikolai,” he said, “or have you forgotten, or are you deliberately misleading the investigation? It happened then. There were such and such people. Some episodes in the testimony were clarified by the investigator Petrov. Thus, by the end of March, we completed work with the investigator.
I understood that I had slandered many people, my friends, comrades.
No protection
On the night of March 20-21, 2014, when investigator Kurbanov explained to me that I was detained on suspicion of committing a crime (Article 209, part 1), I was provided with a female lawyer (I don’t remember my last name) Maxim came in the evening and pointed out me for the mistakes I made. She defended me in court, where they announced that I was detained and arrested for 2 months. At the interrogations conducted in Vladikavkaz, which were conducted by the investigator Petrov, there was no lawyer. We "worked" with interrogations for about five days with breaks for lunch. Maxim came in the evening and pointed out to me the mistakes made by the method described above. Petrov made some clarifications: he showed with gestures how I put a knife in the back of a Russian serviceman, indicated the reason why I was giving evidence (allegedly I was offended that no one was helping me, although how and who could help me in that situation?). When the protocol of the interrogation was completely ready, investigator Petrov came with the lawyer Mamukaeva L.T., who signed the already prepared protocol.<...>
Periodically, I was given the text of a statement printed on a computer about refusing the services of some lawyers. I just rewrote it. First, I didn't know who these people were.
Secondly, I did not see the point in involving someone in my defense, since I did not have the opportunity to pay for the services. I did not know where these people came from, because no one told me this.
Rusty Nail
When I got into the cell, I found a rusty nail, sharpened it against the wall and wanted to open my throat. I understood that the only way out of this situation was to take my own life. But there was an inconspicuous video camera in the cell. The guards broke into me, who followed me and took the nail, searched the cell and followed my actions for a long time.<...>
Of course, on my conscience of perjury against many people. These remorse will be with me until last days. May these people forgive me. I did this not out of malice, but in the name of protecting my son and wife.
Revenge for my beliefs
I know that the Russian FSB is well aware that I did not take part in the Chechen war. Since 2001, the Prosecutor's Office of the Chechen Republic has repeatedly sent to the investigating authorities of Ukraine requests for specific citizens of Ukraine with a request to conduct an inquiry into their involvement in hostilities in the Chechen Republic. Each time a clear list of the same people was drawn up. I, accordingly, was not in these lists. The criminal prosecution of me is revenge for my convictions, for the fact that I devoted many years of my life to the work of creating the sovereign state of Ukraine.
Break my will, force me to change my convictions, slander people and myself ...
And also to impose on me and other members of the UNA-UNSO non-existent atrocities against people - they need these actions in order to somehow justify the crimes that were committed on the territory of Chechnya by Russian servicemen.
Letters to freedom
In January 2015, in response to my appeal to the head of SIZO-6 in Vladikavkaz, I was allowed to write a letter to my relatives. The envelopes were given to me by a cellmate. I wrote a letter in Ukrainian. They returned it to me and asked me to write it in Russian, which I did. I received a response to this letter in March from my wife and son.
At different times I wrote letters to my wife from Vladikavkaz (3 letters) in Russian and two letters from Chelyabinsk in Ukrainian. But received no replies.
As for human rights, I must say that Russia is not the country where they are respected. This was repeatedly stated to me during the investigation. I have felt it myself. Until the end of the investigation, I did not even think of taking any action in defense of myself and my rights. I made a promise to behave accordingly in return for not touching my family.
Therefore, I refused the services of lawyers without any hesitation.
At the end of the investigation in Chelyabinsk, I was also provided with a lawyer.
I don't remember his last name. He was present at giving me the opportunity to get acquainted with the materials of the case, which I refused, because I did not see the point in reading all this nonsense.
September 29, 2015 N. A. Karpyuk.
Here is such a document. Very important.
Karpyuk does not explain what kind of negotiations he was going to Moscow for, with whom exactly from the officials in the presidential administration of Russia he was going to meet.
It is obvious that his detention and arrest were planned in advance by the Russian special services. After recent statements by Alexander Bastrykin that Prime Minister Yatsenyuk fought in Chechnya in 1994, it is clear why the special services needed Karpyuk, whose weaknesses (wife and son) were known in advance to those who planned his arrest.
Karpyuk's story is also important because it once again shows the technology used by the special services to construct the criminal cases they need. Everything is foreseen and seems to be done according to well-known patterns: detention, administrative arrest, accusation, torture, psychological pressure, "sincere" confession, transfer, detention in "solitary", without lawyers and without contact with relatives. And so for almost two years.
And now - the court.
Mykola Karpyuk faces 20 years of strict regime.
* - the activity of the organization is prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation
The Supreme Court of Chechnya has sentenced Ukrainian citizens Nikolai Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh, who were found guilty of participating in hostilities on the side of Chechen separatists in the 1990s. 22.5 years in prison - 20 years in prison.
What were they accused of? In Russia, they are accused of participating in a gang, murder and attempted murder of Russian soldiers in the period 1994-1995. According to investigators, they allegedly belonged to a gang called Viking. Karpyuk and Klykh deny their guilt, the defense of the Ukrainians noted that at that time they were not in Chechnya at all. At the beginning of this process, they gave confessions, but later retracted them. Karpyuk and Klykh said that confessions were forced out of them by the investigation under torture. Recall that in October 2015, the defense published a fragment of the testimony of Karpyuk and Klykh about the alleged participation of Arseniy Yatsenyuk in the Chechen war.
A jury in Grozny found the Ukrainians guilty. The defense does not rule out that after the verdict is passed, they will file an appeal.
Nikolai Karpyuk
Reviewer
Mykola Karpyuk was born on May 21, 1964 in the village of Veliky Zhitin, Rivne region. After receiving secondary education, he worked as a turner at the Rivne plant "Gazotron". During 1982-1984 he underwent urgent military service. Upon completion of his military service, he returned to Rivne, where he worked as a turner at a local flax mill (1984-1985), a tractor spare parts plant (1985-1986) and Gazotron (1986-1990). Then he was a correspondent for the newspaper "Nashe delo". He headed the Rivne regional organization of the Ukrainian National Assembly. In the early 1990s, together with his brothers from the UNSO, he was a participant in the events in Transnistria, and also took part in the war in Abkhazia (1992-1993).
In 2001, Karpyuk participated in the action "Ukraine without Kuchma". He was subsequently arrested and sentenced to 4.5 years in prison. In 2004 he was released from prison. A year later, he managed to sue Ukraine for compensation in the amount of 3,000 euros for violation of his rights during the consideration of the case on the events of March 9, 2001. The corresponding decision was made by the European Court of Human Rights.
After his release, he played a prominent role in the leadership of the UNA-UNSO, according to some reports, he actually headed it, according to official reports, he was the deputy chairman of the UNA-UNSO. Karpyuk is also called one of the founders of the Right Sector.
In March 2014, Karpyuk disappeared. The UNA-UNSO stated that Karpyuk was kidnapped and illegally transported to the Russian Federation. In the "Right Sector" they said that he was kidnapped by the FSB of the Russian Federation. In October 2015, the media reported that Karpyuk himself went to Moscow on the instructions of the "Right Sector" to meet with those allegedly close to Vladimir Putin, who were ready to discuss the possibility of not holding a pseudo-referendum in Crimea. Dmitry Yarosh denied this information. Karpyuk was kidnapped from the border zone of the Chernihiv region. According to other information, he was allegedly detained in the Bryansk region of the Russian Federation. Later he was placed in a Russian pre-trial detention center, and then transferred to Chechnya. For a long time, nothing was known about his whereabouts, so there were rumors that he was no longer alive.
Nikolai Karpyuk is married. He has a son. In the 2014 parliamentary elections, Karpyuk's wife Elena ran for people's deputies on the lists of the Right Sector party. She was in the top ten of the electoral list, but did not get into the Rada.
Stanislav Klykh
Anton Naumlyuk/website
Stanislav Klykh was born on January 25, 1974 in Kyiv. In 1991 he entered the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Faculty of History. In 1996, he qualified as a "historian, teacher of history". In 2001, he entered the correspondence department of the Law Faculty of Shevchenko University with a degree in jurisprudence. Since 2012, Klykh has taught at the Kiev Transport and Economics College. In addition, he has written for various publications. Stanislav's mother Tamara Klykh said in an interview that he was not a member of radical organizations and did not participate in hostilities in the east. People's Deputy Igor Mosiychuk previously stated that Klykh was known in nationalist circles under the nickname "Klikh".
For some time Klykh was a member of UNA-UNSO, but then he lost interest in the party.
Klykh was detained in early August 2014. His relatives reported that he went to the Russian city of Orel to visit his pregnant girlfriend. He was going to return to Kyiv on August 11, but his mother was told by phone that he had been detained. As he himself told his mother, he was detained in a hotel and asked about his membership in the Right Sector. After that, Klykh was taken to a pre-trial detention center and since then has been transferred to different detention centers several times. Now he, together with Karpyuk, is in the Grozny pre-trial detention center.
The former head of the UNA-UNSO told under what torture the Russian investigation forced him to testify against the Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk
On October 12, jury selection will begin in the Supreme Court of Chechnya in the case of 51-year-old Nikolai Karpyuk and 41-year-old Stanislav Klykh, whom the Russian Investigative Committee accuses of fighting against the Russian army in Ukrainian nationalist detachments along with Chechen fighters 20 years ago.
The “case of Ukrainian Viking fighters” who allegedly fought against Russian military personnel in Chechnya in 1994 is one of the most absurd and terrible stories that has happened to Ukrainian citizens arrested in Russia after the annexation of Crimea.
Open Russia appeal to the European Court of Human Rights of one of the defendants in this case, Stanislav Klykh, where he talks about what he confessed to under torture, which he was subjected to for several weeks. In particular, he testified that he fought in Chechnya together with Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Dmitry Yarosh and other Ukrainians who now hold various government posts in Ukraine. Klykh was detained in August 2014 and became the second defendant in the “case of Ukrainian Viking fighters”. Why Vikings? That was the name of the detachment of Ukrainian nationalists, which, according to the prosecution, included Klykh and Mykola Karpyuk.
Mykola Karpyuk is a well-known Ukrainian nationalist who led the UNA-UNSO until this movement turned into the Right Sector. He was detained in Russia on March 17, 2014, and until September 2015 there was almost no information about him. Neither lawyers, nor relatives, nor representatives of the Ukrainian consulate in Russia, nor Russian human rights activists could get through to him. His name was not listed in the database of prisoners of the Russian prison department.
For almost two years, Nikolay Karpyuk was like the "Iron Mask" under Louis XIV, who was kept in various prisons and was not shown to anyone.
When the case was transferred to the Supreme Court of Chechnya, the lawyer managed to go on a date with Karpyuk, he was able to talk to him, and Karpyuk wrote an appeal to the ECHR, in which he described his story in detail, on 8 pages, in neat, almost student handwriting, about how they detained him, how they tortured him, how they hid him from everyone. About how a year and a half of his life turned into a real hell.
This story is written somehow calmly and casually, or something. But if you read carefully, then behind every line you can feel the horror that this person experienced. And you vividly imagine that this can happen to anyone. And somehow it's all very simple. Everyday. It's scary because the people who did it weren't afraid of anything. They told Nikolai Karpyuk that "Russia is not a country where human rights are respected."
And one more thing: the people who detained talked to Karpyuk, interrogated him without lawyers and tortured him, threatened that they would also torture his wife and son. They are absolutely sure that it will pass with impunity; they do not give their real names and surnames.
What for? I do not have an answer to this question - simply because I have not yet been able to speak with the investigators who were in charge of this case. So far, I have not been able to and will hardly be able to ask this question to the heads of the investigative department in the Investigative Committee, who supervised this case. So far, I have not been able to, and it is unlikely that I will be able to, put this question to those FSB officers who were in charge of the operational support of this case.
One thing is clear to me: the price of all the confessions obtained in this case, forced out under torture, is zero.
I would very much like the jurors, who will be selected in the Supreme Court of Chechnya on October 12, to learn about this and understand this.
I know quite a lot about how jury trials work in Russia. But I have never been to the sessions of the Supreme Court of Chechnya. And I don't know how a jury works in Chechnya.
The only thing I’m sure of is that those Chechens who will be among the jurors in the case of Nikolai Karpyuk and Stanislav Klyk, probably have relatives or close friends who, unlike Karpyuk and Klykh, fought in 1994 on the side of Chechen fighters, as they fought Akhmad Kadyrov, father of current Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.
Fragments of Mykola Karpyuk's appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg
Failed negotiations
“On March 17, 2014, I was detained by Russian special services on the border of Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Together with Vyacheslav Stepanovich Fursa and his driver Igor, we drove to Moscow in a ''221-Mercedes S-500'' to negotiate with the leadership of the Russian Federation. The meeting was organized by V.S. Fursa, through his acquaintances, who, according to Fursa, had personal connections with President V.V. Putin.
My trip was discussed by the leadership of the ''Legal Sector'' of Ukraine, where it was decided to delegate me to that meeting. After being detained at a checkpoint on the Russian border, the three of us were sent to the Bryansk department of the FSB, where they were kept in a temporary detention center. The FSB officers had several conversations with us, at which we spoke about the purpose of our trip. One of these conversations was attended by a representative of the Presidential Administration (Presidential Administration. - Open Russia) of Russia.
On March 20, 2014, in the morning, security officers came into my cell, put chains on my arms and legs, loaded me into a minibus and took me away without explaining anything.
accusation
On the night of March 20-21, we arrived at the Office of the Russian Investigative Committee in Essentuki. Employee of the IC Kurbanov M.A. told me that I was detained on suspicion of committing a crime on the territory of the Russian Federation in the period from 1994 to 2001, for which punishment is provided under Art. 209, part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (creation of a stable armed group, gang). I was accused of participating in hostilities in the Chechen Republic during this period. I was sent to the temporary detention facility in Essentuki. On the evening of March 21, they told me that I was leaving ''for a stage''. I was blindfolded with a plastic bag, tied with tape, then loaded into a paddy wagon and taken away in an unknown direction.<...>
From excessive squeezing with adhesive tape, my head was swollen and I was not thinking well. After some time, I was dropped off the paddy wagon and taken to the fourth floor of a house. I counted the floors later by the turns of the stairs along which we climbed. Here I was met by a group of people (I don't know how many there were, because my eyes were blindfolded and I couldn't see).
Torture begins
The leader of the group called himself Maxim and told me what they would do to me so that I would confess to the crimes I was accused of. He said that first I would be tortured with electric current and how it would be passed. Then physical violence will be used, if these methods fail, my wife and son will be kidnapped. They will be subjected to the same violence and will still force me to confess to the crimes.
My assurances that I was not in Chechnya were not perceived by them.
My hands were handcuffed behind my back. My feet and hands were tied with ropes, the handcuffs were removed. Clamps were attached to the second toe of the right foot and the middle finger of the right hand. Then they began to pass an electric current through me with different durations: sometimes for tens of seconds, sometimes with instant shocks, sometimes for a long time.
I did not confess to anything, because I did not take part in the hostilities. During the conduct of this kind of ''inquiries'', I was often told: ''You did this'', ''Then you arrived in Grozny and did this and that'', ''There were such and such people.
After a certain time, the torture stopped and I was told that our conversation would continue the next night.
Electrocution and insomnia
I was brought to the temporary detention center, the blindfold was removed from my eyes and taken to the investigation room, where I was locked in a barred compartment measuring 1m x 1m. I was kept in this cell for 4 days and was not allowed to sleep. There was one guard in the room in shifts, who made sure that I did not sleep. I didn't know where I was. I thought that in the temporary detention facility in Essentuki. And only on April 20 from the investigator Kurbanov M.A. I found out that I was in Vladikavkaz.
Through torture with electricity, my fingers became numb. I didn't feel good about them. They took me out for these ''procedures'' for four nights. The current was passed through different parts of the body: through the whole body, through the heart, through the genitals. They put some kind of needles under my nails, but I didn’t feel pain, probably due to the fact that I didn’t feel my fingers.
On March 25, I was once again brought in for an 'examination' (interrogation - Open Russia). This time they didn't tie my legs. Maxim said that they were tired of my stubbornness and he gave the command to seize my son and bring him in order to subject him to the same torture in front of my eyes. He also said that they would bring his wife, if possible. But a son will be enough for them. I said not to touch my son and wife, I am ready to accept the blame and sign all the necessary documents. Maxim asked me to tell him my consciousness. I told what I heard from them during the torture. What happened next, I don't know.
I started delirious. When a person is deprived of sleep, delirium occurs on 4-5 days.
I woke up in a temporary detention cell.
Indications
On the morning of March 26, investigator Petrov came to me. With him, we began to draw up an interrogation protocol. The most humiliating thing was that I had to testify myself. When there were some inaccuracies, significant deviations in my testimony, corrections were made due to the fact that Maxim came to me (at the same time they blindfolded me so that I could not see) and he pointed out to me where I made ''incorrect'' testimony and explanations.
“Nikolai,” he said, “have you forgotten, or are you deliberately misleading the investigation? It happened then. There were some people there. Some episodes in the testimony were clarified by the investigator Petrov. Thus, by the end of March, we completed work with the investigator.
I understood that I had slandered many people, my friends, comrades.
No protection
On the night of March 20-21, 2014, when investigator Kurbanov explained to me that I was detained on suspicion of committing a crime (Article 209, part 1), I was provided with a female lawyer (I don’t remember my last name) Maxim came in the evening and pointed out me for the mistakes I made. She defended me in court, where they announced that I was detained and arrested for 2 months. At the interrogations conducted in Vladikavkaz, which were conducted by the investigator Petrov, there was no lawyer. We "worked" with interrogations for about five days with breaks for lunch. Maxim came in the evening and pointed out to me the mistakes made by the method described above. Petrov made some clarifications: he showed with gestures how I put a knife in the back of a Russian serviceman, indicated the reason why I was giving evidence (allegedly I was offended that no one was helping me, although how and who could help me in that situation?). When the protocol of the interrogation was completely ready, investigator Petrov came with the lawyer Mamukaeva L.T., who signed the already prepared protocol.<...>
Periodically, I was given the text of a statement printed on a computer about refusing the services of some lawyers. I just rewrote it. First, I didn't know who these people were.
Secondly, I did not see the point in involving someone in my defense, since I did not have the opportunity to pay for the services. I did not know where these people came from, because no one told me this.
Rusty Nail
When I got into the cell, I found a rusty nail, sharpened it against the wall and wanted to open my throat. I understood that the only way out of this situation was to take my own life. But there was an inconspicuous video camera in the cell. The guards broke into me, who followed me and took the nail, searched the cell and followed my actions for a long time.<...>
Of course, on my conscience of perjury against many people. These pangs of conscience will be with me until the last days. May these people forgive me. I did this not out of malice, but in the name of protecting my son and wife.
Revenge for my beliefs
I know that the Russian FSB is well aware that I did not take part in the Chechen war. Since 2001, the Prosecutor's Office of the Chechen Republic has repeatedly sent to the investigating authorities of Ukraine requests for specific citizens of Ukraine with a request to conduct an inquiry into their involvement in hostilities in the Chechen Republic. Each time a clear list of the same people was drawn up. I, accordingly, was not in these lists. The criminal prosecution against me is revenge for my convictions, for the fact that I devoted many years of my life to the work of creating the sovereign state of Ukraine.
Break my will, force me to change my convictions, slander people and myself ...
And also to impose on me and other members of the UNA-UNSO non-existent atrocities against people - they need these actions in order to somehow justify the crimes that were committed on the territory of Chechnya by Russian servicemen.
Letters to freedom
In January 2015, in response to my appeal to the head of SIZO-6 in Vladikavkaz, I was allowed to write a letter to my relatives. The envelopes were given to me by a cellmate. I wrote a letter in Ukrainian. They returned it to me and asked me to write it in Russian, which I did. I received a response to this letter in March from my wife and son.
At different times I wrote letters to my wife from Vladikavkaz (3 letters) in Russian and two letters from Chelyabinsk in Ukrainian. But received no replies.
As for human rights, I must say that Russia is not the country where they are observed. This was repeatedly stated to me during the investigation. I have felt it myself. Until the end of the investigation, I did not even think of taking any action in defense of myself and my rights. I made a promise to behave accordingly in return for not touching my family.
Therefore, I refused the services of lawyers without any hesitation.
At the end of the investigation in Chelyabinsk, I was also provided with a lawyer.
I don't remember his last name. He was present at giving me the opportunity to get acquainted with the materials of the case, which I refused, because I did not see the point in reading all this nonsense.
September 29, 2015 N. A. Karpyuk.
Here is such a document. Very important.
Karpyuk does not explain what kind of negotiations he was going to Moscow for, with whom exactly from the officials in the presidential administration of Russia he was going to meet.
It is obvious that his detention and arrest were planned in advance by the Russian special services. After recent statements by Alexander Bastrykin that Prime Minister Yatsenyuk fought in Chechnya in 1994, it is clear why the special services needed Karpyuk, whose weaknesses (wife and son) were known in advance to those who planned his arrest.
Karpyuk's story is also important because it once again shows the technology used by the special services to construct the criminal cases they need. Everything is foreseen and seems to be done according to well-known patterns: detention, administrative arrest, accusation, torture, psychological pressure, "frank" confession, transfer, detention in "solitary", without lawyers and without contact with relatives. And so for almost two years.
And now, the court.
Mykola Karpyuk faces 20 years of strict regime.