Russia tries to paper over case of Ukrainian Litvinov, accused of mass murder in Donbas

The custodial term of Ukrainian Serhiy Litvinov ends on February 20 while there is much controversy in the evidence for two cases.

As lawyer Viktor Parshutkin said, his client had voluntarily moved to Russia from the Kamyshnoye village, Luhansk region. The Russian investigative authorities considered him to be a fighter of the “Dnipro” battalion and accused of the murder of 39 men, who had allegedly refused to join the ranks of the Ukrainian military units “Dnipro” and “Azov”, as well as the rape and murder of eight women, the wives of those men, and the murder of 12 year-old girl.

As the Human Rights Information Centre correspondent reports, the lawyer describes this situation as tricky, saying he has spoken with the locals on the phone and many of them, in particular, the secretary of the village council, the paramedic, and other people tried to tell him false information. According to Parshutkin, Litvinov was used in this case to incite hatred between Russians and Ukrainians.

As the lawyer said, the psychological and physiological examination, appointed by the investigation and conducted with the use of the polygraph, showed that Litvinov had been tortured.

The interviews among the locals evidence that people heard anything about the massacre, Litvinov is accused of.

The employees of Ukrainian prosecutor’s office also reported that the investigation established only four women among those killed. The names of other people are unknown. The women, whose names are known, are not registered in this territory. Several addresses, where rape and murder allegedly occurred, do not exist. The lawyer handed over these materials to the investigation, but the investigators refused to submit them to the court.

July 2015, when Litvinov had been already in prison for almost a year, another charge was brought against him, not as a soldier but as a civilian. He was charged with robbery. The relevant article provides for punishment of 7-12 years.

Parshutkin said there were inconsistencies in this case, “The Border Guard Service of Ukraine provided evidence that a Russian citizen, recognized as an aggrieved party in the case, who allegedly had stayed in the Kolesnikovka village of Stanytsia Luhanska district, Luhansk region, was not in Ukraine at that time.”

The lawyer signed the pledge of secrecy of the investigation. The investigating authorities also promised to initiate criminal proceedings against him if he would destroy the accusation of robbery the same he did with the case of murder and rape. The grounds for institution of proceedings could be the fact that a lawyer filed the inquiry to Ukrainian consul Hennadiy Breskalenko, having indicated the data from the criminal case. However, if such an inquiry is filed on behalf of the defendant, the criminal liability is not provided. Viktor Parshutkin acted in that way. And now, in his view, the data provided by the consul allow to prove the innocence of Litvinov in the second case as well.

The lawyer supposes that the investigating authorities, realizing that they cannot submit the case to court, hope that Litvinov will be released after the custodial term expires and will go to Ukraine. Meanwhile, he will be put on wanted list in Russian formally and thus the case will be papered over. Parshutkin noted that this case was the only one with such a positive outlook among the all cases of Ukrainian political prisoners.