Editor’s Note: Kateryna Mola is a Kyiv-based communications consultant. She was a close friend of Kateryna (Katya) Gandziuk, a city council employee and an anti-corruption activist from Kherson, a city of 290,000 people located 545 kilometers south of Kyiv. Gandziuk was attacked with battery acid in July and died in the hospital three months later. Her murder became the symbol of the unpunished violence against activists in Ukraine and of the corruption in justice and law enforcement system. This op-ed was originally published in Ukrainian in a number of Ukrainian online media. In it, Mola remembers her friend’s work and the powerful enemies it won her. Opinion pieces reflect the opinions of their authors, not the Kyiv Post.
One summer evening I was hurrying home. Kateryna was waiting for me on the porch. She came to Kyiv on business. She stopped at my place, as it often happened before. A young man was standing there with a tense face not far from the courtyard. Instead of greeting Katya, I pointed to him:
“Is he a spy following you?”
“Why me? Maybe, they gave you your own.”
We laughed at the absurd and dumb machine of the Interior Ministry. But in the end, it made great efforts to take Katya’s life.
When she and I talked about it in the hospital right after the attack, she said that even if the Interior Ministry was not directly involved in the attack, she still blamed them for making it possible.
She was constantly followed. After a public conflict with Artem Antoshchuk, the head of the Department of the Protection of Economy in Kherson Oblast (Katya accused him of corruption and extortion), she was followed every minute. Everywhere she went – a cafe, a beach, or a hairdresser, she saw a person shooting her on the phone. Because of this constant persecution she did not notice that she was followed not by the police who wanted to control her, but by real killers.
Later, she recalled that she had seen the perpetrators before the attack. That means that they were not professional assassins. And if Katya was not used to being constantly followed, she would definitely be able to attach more importance to her future attackers and take necessary security measures.
For a long time, her cover photo on Facebook was an urban landscape with a graffiti reading, “Suck it, cops!” Katya said that she would change this cover photo only when the court admits that she has not violated the law by accusing Antoshchuk, the official of the Interior Ministry, of corruption and extortion. (Antoshchuk filed a defamation of character lawsuit against her)
The Facebook cover photo was just a shrill joke, but the police would not let it go for many months. She told that they wrote her threatening messages, and sent “greetings” via friends. All to make her change the Facebook cover photo. We could not believe that such things could truly bother serious men in uniform. We were mocking this situation, but it seems that we have underestimated how offended they were. By the way, Katya did change the cover photo when the court had made the decision in her favor in March 2018.
The case of Antoshchuk was not her only conflict with the Interior Ministry.
We should start with the fact that Kateryna worked for a short time with our “new police” (the reformed post-EuroMaidan Revolution police where all officers had to go through a “recertification” process to confirm their skills and integrity). She gave lectures and trainings for the police officers. Then it became clear that the recertification had failed, the lustration had not taken place, and the volunteers and public activists served to cover up the imitation of reform by their reputation. Katya said that this was the beginning of restoration of the regime of Viktor Yanukovych, ousted by the revolution on Feb. 22, 2014.
She used to talk a lot about the police, the Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor General’s Office. She used to say that these agencies are the source of corruption in the country, starting with their lowest ranks. She shared her experience and said that the destruction of the ruling class was taking place.
Any official that takes up an influential position immediately inherits with it an employee of the Interior Ministry or the Prosecutor General’s Office who informs him that in order to work, he must pay a fixed amount of money to the colonel. It doesn’t matter where he will take the money, but there are well-known schemes through which he could quietly make some money both for himself and for the man in uniform.
Those who refused to cooperate found themselves on the street very quickly, and sometimes in much worse places. And those who agreed, got hooked by the corrupt law enforcement officials forever, who now had their destiny in their hands – as well as a dossier on the official.
This scheme did not work with Kateryna. Katya knew that there was only one way out. It was maximum publicity. She made a show of attempts to corrupt her. She laughed in the faces of the inept law enforcement officials who were so used to the fact that this scheme had never failed, that they simply did not know what to do and mumbled some platitudes in response.
Katya laughed at every attempt to draw her into some money-making scheme. Not because she was so ideal. She used to say to her colleagues: “Maybe, for you a job of the head of the department in Kherson city council is the peak of the career, but I have bigger plans. I want to become a really big politician. I’m not going to decay here with you under the cops’ heel. And for a great career, I need a clean reputation.”
She deliberately refused jobs and responsibilities that are traditionally connected to money. She had nothing to do with tenders, distribution of land, advertising, etc. That is why, after three months of dirty campaigns that targeted Katya while she was in the hospital after the attack, still no evidence was found that she was abusing her post in the city administration to make money. Because such evidence simply does not exist. Katya was trying to do everything to ensure that no one could accuse her of corruption. She was involved in the city administration’s order, document circulation, seals, media policy and general vision for the future. But she had no relation to money, land and resources.
Her lifestyle reflected this position. She lived with her husband and her dad in a two-room apartment in a regular residential neighborhood. She often used BlaBlaCar service to go to Kyiv. There, she stayed at her friends’ places.
Of course, Gandziuk did not live in poverty. Her life was the life of the Ukrainian middle class.
Kateryna had a personal conflict with Ilya Kyva, (a former aide to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov who unsuccessfully ran for parliament in Kherson constituency in 2016). He called her corrupt but didn’t provide any evidence. He did not stop attacking Katya even after she suffered the acid attack. Katya managed to file the lawsuit against Kyva in the last days of her life. She was outraged by the fact that Kyva, who does not have any official position, came to Kherson and gave orders to the police who literally trembled when he appeared.
She was even more outraged by the behavior of Kyrylo Stremousov, the head of the Kherson branch of the Social Party of Ukraine, now led by Kyva.
Stremousov was and remains the supporter of the “Russian World” (Kherson media reported in October he has called to “find and burn” supporters of the EuroMaidan Revolution). He is one of those who tried to build “Novorossiya” in the territories of the southeastern regions of Ukraine. He was arranging rallies under the Russian tricolors, he was (or perhaps remains) the representative of Viktor Medvedchuk, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s right-hand man, in the region.
Recently Stremousov tried to use force to free a member of the Russian-controlled Crimean government when he was arrested in Kherson by the SBU security service. This case is still not investigated by the National Police although it was caught on video. Probably, the local police can’t touch the separatist backed by Avakov’s Kyva.
Kateryna often said and wrote that the Interior Ministry in Kherson closely cooperated with the Russian occupiers of Crimea and Donbas.
She also believed that Vladyslav Manger, the head of the Kherson Oblast council, was linked to Russia. Manger used to be an aide of Oleksiy Zhuravko, formerly a lawmaker with the Pro-Russian Party of Regions. Today, Zhuravko is hiding in the Russia-occupied part of Donbas. Katya’s closest friend, journalist Serhii Nikitenko, made a whole film about Manger’s activities and criminal past.
After the release of the film, unknown people attacked and beat up Nikitenko. The attack, of course, is still not investigated.
Manger is a representative of Batkivshchyna, a party led by ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, that has 20 seats in parliament. Katya left the party in 2015 because of the fact that Manger joined it (and he immediately received the leading position in the Kherson branch). Of course, she left the party not only because of disgust with Manger. She said that at that time, she realized that Tymoshenko had very close relations with the Russian authorities and Russian criminal world.
Katya had a serious conflict with Ihor Pastukh, the head of the regional department of the state-owned transport company Ukrtransbezpeka. Pastukh used to be the deputy mayor of Kherson, and it was Kateryna who forced his dismissal. They were friends and colleagues for a while, but Pastukh was one of those officials who failed to understand that Maidan was not about changing who benefits from the corrupt schemes.
He also suffered from Kateryna at his job at Ukrtransbezpeka. She organized patrols that were waiting on roads and making truck drivers reweigh their trucks and pay fines for extra weight. It hit another scheme that worked well for decades, and now was suddenly starting to break. Pastukh, incidentally, is the representative of the People’s Front in Kherson and he ran an election campaign for Kyva.
Of course, there were conflicts with the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko, too. In the city council Katya had a conflict with Council Secretary Olena Ursulenko, who regularly tried to remove Mayor Volodymyr Mykolayenko from his position, in order to become the acting mayor of the city. However, Kateryna did not take Ursulenko and her “rebellions” seriously. The scale of Ursulenko’s personality is perfectly described by the case when she tried to use “voodoo magic” on the mayor and his team. Yes, this is not a joke. A few carefully hidden “magic artifacts” were found after one of her visits to the office, and Ursulenko said that Mykolayenko and Gandziuk will be under attack of “the higher powers they will not be able to resist.” After this, Kateryna stopped talking to her about any serious matters.
Also, there was a much more serious conflict with the Governor of Kherson Oblast Andriy Gordeyev. Kateryna’s friends did not allow him to attend her funeral ceremony on Nov. 7.
Gordeyev is a protégé of local oligarchs, namely Andriy Putilov and his son Stanislav Putilov. In the 1990s, the family made a fortune buying scrap metal from people, melting it and selling abroad. Kateryna’s conflict with Gordeyev happened due to many factors, but the main thing was that Kateryna publicly condemned the fact that the position of the governor in a strategically important border region was given to a weak person. She considered him “a limp and controlled alcoholic.” Gordeyev is under the strong influence of the head of the Regional Council Manger and his own deputy Yevhen Ryschuk, who is often called the real governor of Kherson Oblast.
The last scandal with regional authorities took place in June this year, after a huge forest fire took place in Oleshky District, not far from Kherson. Kateryna publicly said that this was a traditional scheme – the forest is set on fire, and then the remains are secretly cut down and sold. This is very convenient, because the forest does not exist officially anymore, which means that no permits are needed, and no taxes are paid. They sell wood and get cash. About 600 hectares of forest were destroyed as a result of the last fire. A rumor had it, they planned to burn only 50 hectares within the corrupt scheme, but the fire went out of control. No one was punished. But the Interior Ministry recognized that arson took place. Kateryna published a photo on Facebook where trucks were carrying wood that had signs of the fire on it. She accused the oblast rulers Manger and Gordeyev of backing the scheme.
In July, a rally against the forest destruction took place in Kherson. Lawyers in Gandziuk’s case say that several people who are suspects in the acid attack on Kateryna are also subjects of criminal proceedings regarding the arson of forest.
Today, they are arrested, although most of them were released from pre-trial detention centers and placed under house arrest by the court ruling. And the SBU officers managed to take the suspected organizer of the attack (former police officer Serhiy) Torbin to Kyiv. They expect to get testimony from him regarding intermediaries and those who ordered the attack.
Locals in Kherson say that Torbin’s kum, or godfather, was the same investigator who arrested Mykola Novikov, the man who was accused of attacking Kateryna but then released after it turned out he had an alibi. Only after Novikov was released, the police were able to arrest the actual perpetrators of the attack.
Recently, there is a lot of talk in Kherson about the connection between Torbin and Ihor Pavlovskyi, who is believed to be a local mafia boss. Pavlovskyi is an aide to the Poroshenko Bloc MP and Interior Ministry General Ihor Palamarchuk. It was Pavlovskyi’s house in Kherson that unknown activists tried to burn on the day of Katya’s funeral. Also, journalists have reported that Torbin and other suspected attackers resided in Kherson on the land owned by Pavlovskyi. It is said that they have collaborated more than once in various other cases. Pavlovskyi was arrested by SBU investigators on Nov. 12.
The accused perpetrators said in the court that they had no intention to kill Kateryna, but wanted to frighten her. Today, this is often repeated by people who write about Katya and follow her case. And this is not true.
One liter of concentrated sulfuric acid is not even a bullet. This is much worse, much more serious, much more lethal. If not for the Kyiv doctors who intervened very quickly, Gandziuk would have died on the day of the attack. One liter of sulfuric acid is guaranteed death within 24 hours due to failure of the internal organs.
This is a fact. In Kherson she would have died in torment. But Katya had a lot of friends. Much more than the attackers thought she had. Moreover, she was very strong. Incredibly strong, with a crazy will to live.
Katya managed to live another three months. She almost recovered. Almost. She always told me that she felt that she had drunk Felix Felicis – a potion that brings good luck in the Harry Potter books.
Strange things, incredible coincidences, fantastic people who saved her, wonderful people whom she saved were always around her. Her life looked like a movie. And I can not believe that this movie is over. I can not believe that her luck is over. Or maybe she has been lucky here too because much worse things await us?
She was waiting for the attack. I did not believe her, because it sounded too horrible. But she said: “After what happened to (activist Serhiy) Sternenko and Nikitenko, I will be next.” But she was not ready that it would happen so soon. The attack took place two days after we had talked about it with Kateryna and Sternenko.
We all felt that something terrible was coming. And at the same time, we were very light-minded. We recorded attacks on activists that were taking place more often. And each time they were more violent, as if killers were drunk with impunity.
Why would they not be drunk on impunity? As a result of the attack on Sternenko in Odesa, the authorities refused to give him state protection and arrested him for killing his attacker. The police lost material evidence in the case of Kharkiv activist Mykola Bychko, who was found hanged in the forest, and reclassified the murder case into a suicide case. As for the attack on Nikitenko in Kherson, all the police are doing is trying to determine whether Nikitenko indeed is a journalist – for over 30 days now – and they’re doing nothing else.
It is obvious that some people interpret this inaction as an invitation to attack. And, perhaps, local “feudal lords” who want to steal forests, sand, amber, gas, coal, and everything else that belongs to us, have been correctly interpreting signals from the interior minister.
Meanwhile, there are no signals from the Presidential Administration. The presidential election will take place on March 31. It means that the president does not want to fight with local “feudal lords,” who can provide him the desired result in the election. They have been handy in providing the required election results for more than two decades. They are real pros. This comes with a little side effect: The best of us are being killed.
We’re addressing the president, the leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Interior Ministry and the Security Service of Ukraine: It’s time to come clean: Who ordered Katya Gandziuk’s murder?
Kateryna Mola is a Kyiv-based communications consultant who was a personal friend of the late Kateryna Gandziuk.
