A historical heritage defender was beaten in Kyiv, a forest defender was tortured in Lviv. The police does nothing!

12.02.2021

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Ukraine ends 2020 with a completely dormant law enforcement system, which often spawns criminals of its own, and new attacks on public figures. The day before the New Year, right in the center of the capital, a daring attack was made on a public activist and lawyer who was fighting to preserve the historical sight of “Repyakhov Yar” Oleg Simoroz. A week before, he had been openly threatened and promised to be “dragged to court.” A few days earlier, in the Lviv region, unlegal lumberjacks, with the inaction of the local police, tortured a local journalist Vasily Vasilitin. Probably, it will be superfluous to write that no one was detained and no investigation was conducted.

Attack on a public figure in the capital

The history of attempts to build up the territory of a local monument – “Historical landscape of the Kiev mountains and the valley of the Dnieper river”, part of which are the slopes of Repyahov Yar, has been going on for the fourth year already. However, the most hot phase of the confrontation took place this year. The developer, construction company of ex-regional Vladimir Zubik “Integral-Bud tried to bring heavy construction equipment to the street Makarivska, in the Shevchenkivskyi district of the capital “, despite the lack of a full package of permits, even in the summer. The dealers were also not stopped by the official refusal of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy for an agreed project for the development of the site, which, in particular, passes the border of the buffer zone of the UNESCO World Heritage Site – “St. Kirillovskaya Church”. Read more about this in our material – “Developers are cutting trees again in the UNESCO protected area near St. Kirillovskaya Church.”

Then, thanks to the consolidation of local residents and the legal work of ex-deputy of the Kiev City Council Svyatoslav Kutnyak (“People’s Power”) and lawyer Oleg Simoroz, the construction was stopped. Of course, this state of affairs could not satisfy the developer company, according to the plenipotentiary representative Sergei Altynnikov, they carry out only: “preparatory work for the construction of the retaining wall of the slope.”

This is probably why, such “titushki” appeared on the construction site in the autumn of this year, dealing with the preservation of the historic area of Kyiv, began to receive direct threats. It was during this period that the conflict between the local community and the developer from a legal point of view began to move increasingly into a phase of direct physical confrontation.

Why did it happen?

For the second month, residents of Makarivska Street have been living next to several dozen young sportsmen from the allegedly public formation “Left Bank”, who provide actual access for construction equipment to the historical environment, despite the presence of the above prohibitions.

The last argument of the developer

All this time, Vadim Titushko’s followers managed mainly with verbal insults against the locals, who tried to prevent the arrival of huge drilling rigs, which are literally destroying the slope under their homes and breaking the law. However, when, under the frenzied pressure of society, it came to the real fixation of the revealed violations on the part of the regulatory authorities, and the developer himself faced a potential opportunity to lose the relevant license, techniques were used from the turbulent 1990s …

Lying – kicked

“In order to stop the barbaric destruction of the historical area by the perpetrator, two locals and I of Makarovsky Street, showed the inspector of the Cultural Heritage Protection of the Kyiv City State Administration how, under the guise of erecting a” retaining wall “, an illegal construction of a residential complex is actually taking place,” the victim Oleg tells Simorosis.

The public activist is convinced that the order to beat him up was given by the developer’s representative, and the reason for this, in his opinion, was the arrival of the inspector who tried to fix the violations during the construction work. “When the inspector appeared, the developer’s representative was extremely angry … apparently he gave the order to the titushki, who, like jackals, attacked from the back when we walked from the site,” continues Shimorosa.

Oleg Simoroza and Sergey Altynnikov

According to Oleg, several athletic guys attacked him and one of the local residents, who was nearby at that moment. The “titushki” first knocked the activist down, and then began to kick him in the head, as a result of which the latter received a closed head injury and was forced to seek medical attention.

Usually, a police patrol was called to the scene, and a corresponding crime statement was written on the fact of deliberate bodily harm. However, despite the arrival of law enforcement officers, the “athletes” did not go anywhere from the construction site, and the law enforcement officers pointedly refused to look for those who attacked the public figure among their “comrades”.

The attackers fled, but the police refused to detain their “comrades”

Oleg Simoroza unambiguously connects this attack with his social activities and notes that he has repeatedly received threats to his life before. In the future, he intends to seek the opening of criminal proceedings and real punishment not only for his offenders, but also for the organizers of the attack. According to the current Criminal Code of Ukraine, these acts can be qualified under Article 122 “Intentional bodily injury of moderate severity” committed with the purpose of intimidation. The sanction of the article provides for up to 5 years in prison.

Attack on a regional journalist

On December 23, journalist and eco-activists Vasily Vasilitin, being in the village of Lavochnoye in Skolevskoye, learned that a convoy of timber trucks had again set off in the Carpathian November of Slavsky Galselles. He ran to the likely felling area, on the way, calling “102” and the villagers, who have been trying for several years on their own to stop the destruction of forests around.

As Vasily himself describes the situation, without waiting for the arrival of the police, he decided to stop the timber truck on his own, after which, introducing himself as a journalist, he began filming. Of course, the “black lumberjacks” did not like it, and they began to beat Vasily. “Vasily lost consciousness, and later, after making sure that Vasyl was unconscious, they started searching him and stole the mobile phone on which the injured Vasily was filming and stole another 5000 hryvnias, which were in a stunted phone. Vasily began to regain consciousness already tied with strands to the bumper of the timber truck, and they again continued to torture him, hit him on the head. residents of the village of Lavochnoye, Vasily’s wife, ran out and stopped this timber truck. There was a verbal skirmish in rude tones. People tried to free Vasily, but they failed. The maddened black lumberjacks shouted that they would all be beaten up now, ” Facebook page by local activist Vladimir Yavdik.

At the cost of his health, the journalist tried to stop the destruction of the Carpathian forests

Further, Vladimir tells from the words of the villagers, a police patrol arrived, but “behaved arrogantly, arrogantly, arrogantly, told all the people to run away and give way to the timber trucks, because now they would take everyone, they forbade filming.” And only thanks to the ambulance brigade, it was possible to prevent complete arbitrariness – despite the ban on the part of the police from approaching Vasily Vasilitin, who was tied to the timber carrier, doctors began to provide him with first aid.

“The main representative of the forestry enterprise came and let’s take care of everything. Something was thought up there that Vasily had injured someone, what a drunken lumberjack, the doctors examined the lumberjack and did not find any beatings. People told the police that Vasily’s mobile phone with video evidence and money had been stolen, but the police did not even take into account, but on the contrary behaved rudely towards the villagers. The police at this time and still did not accept the screenings from the injured journalist Vasily Vasilitin, but did not interrogate the fighters, kativniki in the leshoz who beat Vasily, did not carry out any investigative actions or reproductions. An ambulance took the journalist to the hospital, and the police quickly dispersed everyone from the scene, “the local activist concluded.

The message of the opening of three criminal proceedings on the fact of “conflict between a journalist and forestry workers” was posted only after the announcement on December 29 on the website of the Lviv Region Police. Of course, there are no detainees. Vasilitin is in the hospital.

Dmitry Perov, Irina Kovalchuk

Translation: Starovoit Olha