Two men have shot and beaten Vladyslav Pohorielov, one of the leaders of Auto Euro Syla civil organization of car owners in Zaporizhia, an industrial city of about 750,000 residents 500 kilometers south-east of Kyiv on Jan. 1 – the latest in a spate of attacks on civil activists in Ukraine.
Pohorielov says he rebuked the two men for throwing fireworks under his and other people’s cars near his house. They swore at him and threatened him, and then Pohorielov used a flashlight to point to the spot under his car’s fuel tank where the attackers threw fireworks.
“After having threats thrown at me, I heard the sound of pistol cocking and three shots. One of them hit me in the knee joint,” Pohorielov wrote in a Facebook post. “After 5 minutes of beating, I fell on my knees and hands. Several kicks to the face and hits with the pistol grip followed.”
Pohorielov has undergone surgery and now remains in hospital.
Auto Euro Syla is a civil organization founded in 2016 to support car owners who have European license plates in several Ukrainian cities. Auto Euro Syla activists have rallied by the Ukrainian Parliament and blocked city streets to pressure lawmakers into adopting laws reducing customs fees for imported cars and against a 40 percent increase in the price of Ukrainian-made gasoline.
Police have detained one of the attackers, whom they claim was the only one responsible for the attack. The other man, they say, was not involved, and remained in the assailant’s car during the attack.
The assailant was charged with hooliganism, a criminal offense punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Pohorielov disagreed with the charge.
“Unfortunately, the police qualify this as ‘hooliganism’ ignoring that there were two attackers, and they used a firearm,” he said.
The police say the attack was not connected to Pohorielov’s civil activism and say that it was a general “domestic conflict.”
