Name: Vitaliy Ustymenko
Age: 25
Education: Political science at Mechnikov Odessa National University
Profession: Civic activism
Did you know? Apart from his activism, Ustymenko teaches private classes in history, training children for high school graduation tests.
Vitaliy Ustymenko has one of the riskiest occupations in Ukraine, in which threats and beatings are a usual thing.
He is a civic activist in Odesa, the Black Sea port of 1 million people located 475 kilometers south of Kyiv. Odesa is known for its criminal past and is led by Mayor Hennady Trukhanov, who is under investigating for embezzlement charges that he denies.
Ustymenko was physically assaulted numerous times. He recalls how the guards of a construction site that he protested as illegal punched him in the face. In a different instance, he came to a session of the city council, and Trukhanov’s security guards grabbed him by the neck and pushed him out. This summer, two thugs crossed his way on a street and stabbed him with a homemade knife.
He got used to hearing verbal and phone threats and seeing red paint spilled on the front door of his house. Once, he received an envelope with some soil and a jack of spades in it.
Nevertheless, Ustymenko doesn’t plan to quit. He leads the Odesa branch of the AutoMaidan civic movement, a group of 50 active members, and one of the most outspoken organizations protesting against illegal construction and embezzlement of public funds.
Ustymenko is one of at least 14 civic activists who have been attacked in Odesa in 2018. Although police have found two suspects in the knife attack on him, there is no sign that they are looking for the mastermind who ordered the stabbing, he said.
“The attacks distract a lot,” Ustymenko said. He links most of the current attacks on him, including the recent stabbing, to his criticism of Trukhanov and his allies.
Ustymenko is also a member of a civic watchdog overseeing the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and an analyst at Centre UA, a Kyiv-based think tank.
He said that he was confronted by pro-Russian people, who attacked him for being a supporter of the EuroMaidan Revolution, which ousted President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 and led to local conflicts and a fight for power in Odesa. Things changed starting in 2015. Most of the pro-Russian separatists in Odesa went underground and many local supporters of the revolution allied with Trukhanov. “In 2015, the public sector became dependent on the mayor through bribes and manipulations,” Ustymenko said.
Now six local anti-corruption, environmental and nationalist organizations have formed a coalition with 300 active members. Ustymenko said the frequent attacks on the activists prove that they are influential. Activists are “the only force that can openly oppose (Trukhanov’s) group,” he said.
