Detentions of government critics continued in Ukraine

The SBU opens criminal cases according to one scenario – all those who disagree with the authorities become “agents of Russia”

A Kiev court sent Verkhovna Rada deputy Alexander Dubinsky to jail for two months on suspicion of treason. Prosecutors believe that he undermined the socio-political situation in the country and discredited the state. The deputy himself called the case revenge for criticism of the President’s Office. And he may have reason to think so: over the past year, almost all of Zelensky’s opponents have been removed from office or sent to jail.

The SBU officially announced that it has served People’s Deputy Alexander Dubinsky with suspicion of treason. The security service believed that the deputy entered into a conspiracy with Russian military intelligence and became part of a certain criminal organization formed by the main directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.

“The main task of this organization is to undermine the socio-political situation in Ukraine and discredit our state in the international arena. For this, the group members received money from Russian military intelligence,” the SBU statement said.

Previously, Dubinsky participated in the distribution of the “Derkach tapes” – these are alleged recordings of conversations in 2015-2016 between Petro Poroshenko and Joe Biden, who then served as vice president of the United States. Dubinsky was an active member of Zelensky’s team, even entered the Rada from the Servants of the People, but then he began to write about corruption cases related to the Office of the President. “I believe that this case is Ermak-Zelensky’s revenge,” the people’s deputy himself commented on the criminal prosecution.

This is far from the first case in Ukraine that the SBU is conducting according to such a scenario. A person who has opposed the current leadership of the country or has assets that can be taken away is accused of having ties with Russia and taken out of the political space – sometimes straight into prison.

In mid-September, the Pechersky Court of Kyiv arrested deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and former head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Nestor Shufrich on charges of treason. According to the SBU, he allegedly collaborated with the former Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Vladimir Sivkovich, whom the Ukrainian authorities consider an employee of the Russian FSB.

Shufrich himself admits that he communicated with Sivkovich in 2021, and the suspicion that he was an FSB agent appeared only in July 2022. “If it was impossible to communicate with him, the SBU was obliged to report the danger of communicating with this person. This was not done. That is, the SBU did not fulfill its direct responsibilities,” Ukrainian media quote him.

Another high-profile case involves the head of the Motor Sich enterprise. 83-year-old Vyacheslav Boguslaev was detained last year, again on suspicion of having ties with Russia. However, as experts explained to MK, the case against the design engineer is connected solely with the desire of the Ukrainian authorities to acquire his assets.

The only way to avoid arrest for criticizing the government is to not be in the country. Thus, the SBU accused blogger Anatoly Shariy, who lives in Spain, of treason. He was suspected of collaborating with the FSB, and also of allegedly preparing and distributing “staged” videos of interrogations of Ukrainian prisoners of war. These shots, according to the SBU, were used to discredit the military-political leadership of Ukraine. The blogger himself denies guilt.

Perhaps one of the most unexpected criminal cases involves the oligarch and former Zelensky ally Igor Kolomoisky. Law enforcement officers suspect him of fraud and legalization of property obtained by crime in the amount of over 500 million hryvnia (approximately 1.3 billion rubles).

There are many reasons for Kolomoisky’s arrest: from the desire to demonstrate the promised de-oligarchization to the desire to please the United States. Be that as it may, his arrest is beneficial to the current leadership of Ukraine. Kolomoisky is one of the richest residents of Ukraine and, if he wanted, he could easily use his influence against the authorities.