Luhansk man arrested by Russia-backed militants for organizing a protest on social media

A young Luhansk resident has been taken prisoner by the Kremlin-backed militants of the self-proclaimed ‘Luhansk people’s republic’ [LPR] for proposing a protest action on his VKontakte social network page (under the name Yulia Martynenko).  Stanyslav Dusyak has been forced to produce a videoed ‘confession’ in which he says that the aim of his ‘unauthorized protest’ was “to destabilise the situation in Luhansk”.  Although the report speaks only of administrative liability for failing to get a meeting ‘authorized’, the forced ‘confession’ and claims made suggest that he is unlikely to be released from custody.

The so-called ‘LPR ministry of state security’ claims that Dusyak is “a provocateur acting in the republic on Ukraine’s instructions”.  He is alleged to be “the organizer of an unauthorized meeting, who was planning, in conspiracy with representatives of Ukraine, a mass protest in order to destabilize the socio-political situation in the republic”.

During the ‘confession’, which Dusyak is obviously reciting as demanded, he says that he was prompted to bypass ‘LPR legislation’ by an old university friend who is now working as assistant to a Ukrainian prosecutor.

Judging by other Internet sites, Dusyak is 27, born in Luhansk but with a legal education from the Yaroslav Mudry [the Wise] National University in Kharkiv. 

There is a post on the VKontakte page in question calling on people to come out in protest against the cost of certification in LPR on September 15 near the monument to Taras Shevchenko in Luhansk.   The author also makes extremely critical comments regarding the propaganda people are being fed about “Ukrainian saboteurs’, etc, and about the lack of any explanation as to how Gennady Tsyplakov, a former ‘LPR  prime minister’ died while under arrest.  The official version is that he committed suicide, however many note the other deaths under suspicious circumstances of militants and believe he was killed.

The protest was supposed to make a collective complaint to LPR militant leader Igor Plotnitsky asking for the customs duty on cars to be made three times lower, and similar demands.

The LPR spokesperson speaks only of the requirement to get any protest authorized, and does not mention the critical comments which seem more likely to have prompted Dusyak’s ‘arrest’. 

It is highly dangerous to write or say things in support of Ukraine or critical of those in power in either ‘LPR’ or the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ [DPR].

It was reported back on August 1, 2017 that a so-called LPR military court had sentenced two Ukrainians, a man and a woman, to 14 years’ imprisonment for supposed ‘state treason’.  Although the LPR reports did not name the two, since the alleged ‘treason’ involved spreading ‘negative information’ on the Internet, it was immediately understood that the man was Edward Nedelyaev, a prominent Luhansk blogger, seized in November 2016 (more details here). 

It is possible that the woman is 52-year-old Valentina Buchok who was seized in March 2017 in the so-called ‘Donetsk people’s republic’.  She was accused of ‘spying’ for the SBU by, for example, a ’reconnaissance visit’ to the apartment where  Russian war criminal Motorola lived a month or more after he was killed (see: Donbas militants seize Ukrainian woman & accuse her of bizarrely useless ‘spying’ ).

There is virtually no information about Serhiy Mironych, whom the so-called ‘LPR military court’ sentenced to 20 years for a supposed plan to blow up an oil refinement base in Luhansk.

There are extremely serious grounds for doubting all such ‘charges’ and for concern and about other Ukrainians, like Vlad Ovcharenko and Artem Akhmerov about whom nothing has been heard for many months

There have been several huge sentences reported over the last two months, with no mention of the people’s name, and no way of knowing whether the individuals have lawyers.  There have also been more abductions reported in LPR-controlled territory, including those of 22-year-old Mykola Petukhov and 30-year-old Roman Sahaidak.  Sahaidak’s sister says that her family has had huge trouble finding a lawyer.  As soon as they hear that her brother was seized by the so-called ‘ministry of state security’, they back away.

There remains no information about Stanyslav Aseyev, the prominent Donetsk journalist seized by the ’DPR’ militants in early June Release of seized Donetsk journalist negotiated with people ’close to Russia’