On July 31, Vitaly Oleshko, a veteran of Ukraine’s war with Russia and critic of local authorities, was killed in the city of Berdyansk, while Kateryna Gandziuk, a local official and critic of police and Russian-backed politicians, was attacked with acid in Kherson. On Aug. 2, Odesa activists Mykhailo Kuzakon and Grigory Kozma were also assaulted.
Other anti-corruption activists and whistleblowers have come under attack recently — Dmytro Bulakh and Yevhen Lisichkin in Kharkiv, judge Larysa Golnyk in Poltava, Vitaly Shabunin in Kyiv, Vitaly Ustymenko and Serhiy Sternenko in Odesa. Human rights lawyer Iryna Nozdrovska was killed in Kyiv in January, while journalist Pavel Sheremet was murdered in 2016.
Many of the victims were highly critical of local authorities — for example, Mayor Hennady Trukhanov and his allies Alexander Angert and Vladimir Galanternik in Odesa, Mayor Hennady Kernes in Kharkiv and Kyryl Stremusov from the party of Ilya Kyva, an ex-advisor to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, in Kherson.
Avakov’s police and Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko’s office have done nothing to investigate most of the attacks and murders.
There is an apparent pact among the central authorities in Kyiv, including President Petro Poroshenko and Avakov, and those in power in the regions. The agreement is that regional rulers keep their mouths shut and share their spoils. In exchange, they are left alone and given a free hand to do whatever they want in their fiefdoms, including assault their opponents and steal.
One obvious example is Trukhanov, who enjoys support from Poroshenko and Avakov. He has stayed afloat despite his Russian citizenship, confirmed by Russia’s Federal Tax Service, and despite the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine’s corruption changes against him.
The authorities have declared war on civil society and anti-corruption crusaders. This disgusting feudalism has nothing to do with the European democratic values that Ukrainian authorities claim to embrace.
This must stop. Those responsible for the attacks and murders, up to the top of the political hierarchy, must be brought to justice.
