KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — Viktor looked nervous as masked, fully equipped, camouflaged and armed Ukrainian security agents entered his crowded apartment in the northern city of Kharkiv. His hands were shaking and he tried to cover his face.
The middle-aged man came to the attention of Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, after the government said it was his social media posts praising Russian President Vladimir Putin for “fighting with the Nazis,” calling the regions to secession and labeling the national flag as “one of death. “
“Yes, I was very supportive (of the Russian invasion of Ukraine). I am sorry. . . I have already replaced my mind,” Viktor said, his trembling voice looking like a transparent symptom of coercion in the presence of Ukrainian security agents.
“Take your belongings and get dressed,” an officer said before escorting him out of the apartment. The SBU revealed Viktor’s last name, which opened the investigation.
Viktor is one of 400 other people in the Kharkiv region who were detained under anti-collaboration legislation temporarily enacted by the Ukrainian parliament and signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the Russian invasion on February 24.
Criminals face up to 15 years in prison for engaging with Russian forces, publicly denying Russian aggression or supporting Moscow. Anyone whose movements result in death can be sentenced to life in prison.
“The duty of collaboration is inevitable, and whether that will take place or the next day is another matter,” Zelenskyy said. “The most important thing is that justice is inevitably done. “
Although Zelensky’s government enjoys broad support, even among many Russian speakers, not all Ukrainians oppose the invasion. Support for Moscow is not unusual among some Russian-speaking citizens of Donbass, a trading region in the east. An eight-year standoff there between Moscow-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces had killed more than 14,000 people even before this year’s invasion.
Some businessmen, municipal and state officials and members of the military are among those who have crossed to the Russian side, and Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation said more than two hundred instances of collaboration for criminals have been opened. Zelenskyy even stripped two SBU. generals of their rank, accusing them of treason.
A “register of collaborators” is being created and will be made public, said Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s Security Council. He declined to say how many other people were being targeted across the country.
Under martial law, the government banned 11 pro-Russian political parties, adding the largest that had 25 seats in the 450-member parliament: the Opposition Platform for Life, which was founded through Viktor Medvedchuk, an imprisoned oligarch with close ties to Putin.
Authorities say pro-Russian militants in southeastern Ukraine, the scene of active fighting, are watching as observers to lead the bombing.
“One of our main goals is for no one to stab our armed forces in the back,” Roman Dudin, head of the SBU’s Kharkiv branch, said in an interview with The Associated Press. He spoke in a dark basement where the SBU moved its operations. after its construction in the center of Kharkiv bombed.
The Kharkiv branch has detained other people who invaded, called for secession and claimed that Ukrainian forces are bombing their own cities.
Accusations of collaboration with the enemy have a strong ancient resonance in Ukraine. During World War II, some locals welcomed and even cooperated with nazi Germany’s invading forces after years of Stalinist repression, adding the “Holodomor,” a man-made famine that reportedly killed more than 3 million Ukrainians. For years thereafter, the Soviet government cited the cooperation of some Ukrainian nationalists with the Nazis as an explanation for why demonize today’s democratically elected leaders in Ukraine.
Human rights defenders are aware of the “dozens” of arrests of pro-Russian activists in Kiev since the new legislation was passed, but the number of other people targeted across the country is unclear, said Volodymyr Yavorskyy, coordinator of the Center for Civil Liberties. one of the centers of Ukraine. The largest human rights groups.
“There is no complete knowledge about (everything) the country, because everything is classified through the SBU,” Yavorskyy told the AP.
“The Ukrainian government is actively employing the practice of Western countries, especially the United Kingdom, which imposed serious restrictions on civil liberties during the war in Northern Ireland. Some of those restrictions were deemed unjustified by human rights defenders, and others were justified, while people were in danger,” he said.
A user in Ukraine can be detained for up to 30 days without a warrant, he said, and the anti-terrorism law under martial law allows the government to tell defense lawyers that their clients are in pretrial detention.
“In fact, those other people disappear and for 30 days there is nothing for them,” Yavorskyy said. “Actually, (law enforcement) has the strength to take anyone away. “
The government knows the implications of detaining other people because of their views, adding the threat of thwarting Moscow’s line that Kiev is cracking down on Russian speakers. But in times of war, officials say, free speech is only one component of the equation.
“The debate about balancing national security and guaranteeing freedom of expression is endless,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the AP.
Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the U. N. human rights office, said her firm had documented “cases of arrests and detentions allegedly carried out through Ukrainian law enforcement, which may involve elements of human rights violations” and that it is following up with the Ukrainian government.
He said his office reviewed 8 cases that “appear to be disappearances of other people deemed ‘pro-Russian’, and we have documented two cases of unlawful killings of ‘pro-Russians’, as well as surveillance cases, in which law enforcement and others punish other people suspected of being pro-Russian,
In the city of Bucha, now a symbol of the terrible violence of the war, Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said aides had given the invading troops the names and addresses of pro-Ukrainian activists and officials in the city outside Kiev, with many civilians. shot dead with their hands tied behind their backs or their bodies burned by Russian forces.
“I saw those execution lists, dictated by the traitors: the Russians knew in advance who they were going to, what they would face and who lived there,” said Fedoruk, who saw his own call on a list. “Of course, the Ukrainian government will seek out and punish those people.
In the besieged port city of Mariupol, authorities accused the collaborators of helping the Russians cut off electricity, running water, fuel and communications in much of the city.
“I now fully understand why the Russians were making such precise and coordinated movements on critical infrastructure objects, knowing all the places and even the times when Ukrainian buses evacuating refugees had to depart,” Mayor Vadym Boychenko said.
Political analysts say the invasion and brutality of Russian civilian troops has discouraged many Moscow supporters. However, many of those supporters remain.
“Russian propaganda has taken deep root and many Orientals who watch Russian TV channels absurdly claim that it is the Ukrainians who are bombing them and other myths,” Volodymyr Fesenko of the Penta Center think tank told the AP. “Naturally, the Ukrainian government in the southeast are afraid of being stabbed in the back and are forced to step up security measures. “
Unlike Viktor, whose kharkiv apartment they were looking for, Volodymir Radnenko, 86, did not seem surprised when Ukrainian security arrived on Saturday to search for his apartment after arresting his son, Ihor. The military said the son suspected of helping the Russians bomb the city, some of which happened in the community of Radnenko about 15 minutes before officials arrived, with a lingering smell of smoke. At least two other people were killed and 19 others injured in the area.
“I used to think Russia is all there is,” Radnenko told the AP after the officials left. “I ask him, ‘So who is bombing us? It is not ours (people), it is its fascists. And he just gets it.
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Karmanau reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Vasilisa Stepanenko contributed in Kharkiv and Jamey Keaten in Geneva.
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