The Security Service has released an audio recording of conversations concerning the murder of Volodymyr Rybak, Deputy of Horlivka City Council.
As reported, it is the group under so-called ‘Shooter’, which operates in Donetsk Oblast, and a citizen of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant Colonel of the National Intelligence Agency (GRU) Igor Bezler.
It was established that on 17 April 2014, Bezler (call sign BES – Devil) set the self-proclaimed chief of police the task of neutralizing Rybak, who was trying to raise the national flag on the Horlivka Regional State Administration building.
Simultaneously, Bezler gave orders to a member of his group, a military officer of the Russian Federation, to kidnap Rybak, put him in a car, and take him to a specified place, where measures of physical coercion would be applied to him. Bezler planned to personally go to the place where Rybak would be detained.
Then, following Shooter’s (Igor Strelkov) orders, Rybak was taken to the headquarters of separatists in Sloviansk, where he personally had to talk to Igor Strelkov.
It was also established that on 20 April 2014 Strelkov personally gave instructions to Ponomariov, the self-proclaimed mayor of Sloviansk, to take the body of murdered Rybak away from headquarters; the order was carried out.
Transcript:
Orders to seize Rybak:
Bezler: “Alf, listen to me, go inside the city executive committee. There Rybak is on a rampage. There, people are trying to restrain him somehow.”
Bezler: “Look, squeeze and press him for a bit, put him in your car, and take him somewhere far away. And then stop the car and tell me where I should come. Understood? Come on!”
Bezler: “Do not hang up! Guys, take him, we need to pack him up and take him away.”
Bezler: “When packing – tie his hands, tie him so hard that no eyes, so that he can’t see anything.”
Order of Russian special operations soldier Strelkov to self-proclaimed mayor of Sloviansk Ponomariov concerning measures to bury the body:
Strelkov: “Slava, please, settle the matter with the stiff. So that he is quickly dragged away from us today. Why should he be lying here and stinking … ”
Ponomaryov: “With the corpse? Yes, yes, just a moment. I am now finishing with journalists and will do it straight away”
Ponomaryov: “There guys caught… they will take … to you with … there to the basement … ”
Ponomaryov: “And now I will go quickly and settle the issue of burying this [prison] bitch.”
Strelkov: “Come on, good.”
At a briefing earlier, Marina Ostapenko, spokeswoman of the Security Service of Ukraine, appealed to the people of Sloviansk, asking them not to support terrorists.
Source: Ukrainska Pravda (includes audio)
Translated by Halyna Kaluzhna, edited by Robin Rohrback
