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The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

Senior Kremlin-backed militant confirms executions in Slovyansk

04.08.2014   
Igor Druz, a senior aide to head of the militants’ military offensive, Igor Girkin [Strelkov] asserted that a number of people had been killed “to prevent chaos” Among the known victims are the two sons of the pastor of a local evangelical church and two deacons of the church and a 19-year-old student

Senior Kremlin-backed militant confirms executions in Slovyansk

Igor Druz, a senior aide to head of the militants’ military offensive,  Igor Girkin [Strelkov] has confirmed to the BBC that militants executed people in Slovyansk.  He claimed that a number of people had been killed “to prevent chaos”.

On the other hand, Druz called the Ukrainian government “Kyiv terrorists” and said he was confident that the militants would win.

He asserted that they plan to create a “social state” which will defend what he called ‘Christian values’ and punish for ‘social defects”.

Druz also said he was in no doubt that most “members of the insurgency” support the introduction of the death penalty for grave crimes.

What he and his cronies call Christian values is difficult to understand, as is what he means by ‘grave crimes’.

In one of the graves uncovered in Slovyansk after the militants fled, the mutilated bodies were found of four members of a Slovyansk evangelical church -  the two sons – Ruvim and Albert - of Pastor Alexander Pavenko from the Slovyansk Evangelical Church of the Transformation, as well as deacons of the church Viktor Brodarsky, and Volodymyr Velychko.

Three bodies were found in a river near Slovyansk soon after the militants seized control of the city.  One, Volodymyr Rybak, a Horlivka deputy, is known to have been abducted by Kremlin-backed militants.  Nothing is known about how Yury Popravko, a 19-year-old student was abducted, however his body was found at the same time as that of Rybak, with the same signs of bestial torture.  A third body, that of a 25-year-old man was found a little later. 

What kind of ‘chaos’ the militants were trying to prevent is therefore completely inexplicable.

The BBC report quotes Ukraine’s representative to NATO, Ihor Dolhov as saying that the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic is a terrorist organization.  This view is shared by many in Ukraine and beyond.  Poland’s foreign minister Radosław Sikorski has, however, asked people to be patient since any recognition of the Kremlin-backed formations as terrorist organizations carries huge legal implications which much be studied in depth. 

(Halya Coynash)

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