A dead man found in the river of Torets near the village of Raihorodok in the Donetsk region of Ukraine on April 19 has been identified as Vladimir Rybak, a member of the Gorlovka (Horlivka) City Council of the Bat’kivschyna Party, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry reported. The assassination caused furious hysteria in junta-controlled Ukrainian media accusing “Eastern terrorists” of committing this criminal act.
Having made a brief dig into the biography of Vladimir Rybak we have to say the following:
1. Vladimir Rybak, a Bat’kivschina deputy of Gorlovka city council (a 500000-strong agglomeration in Donetsk region), former Ukrainian Internal Ministry officer, was a very passionate Euromaidan supporter. Some of his public appearances (check e.g. this video in Russian dated Dec 8, 2013) reveal that he was very critical towards his colleagues in city council, including Bat’kivschina party members. His behavior and biography suggest that he was a typical “idealist” and truth-seeker, a sort of people absolutely needed for revolutions but very occasionally surviving ones.
2. According to another available video, published on Oct 2, 2012, he was conflicting with a local criminal gang affiliated with some members of the then ruling Party of Regions. The issue of quarrel referred to business interests of different power groups in the area.
3. For the Eastern Ukraine popular resistance movement there was no sense in killing Rybak. Facing the overwhelming support of counter-putsch rebellion in Gorlovka where a number of governmental buildings were occupied by the people for the last two weeks, he represented no serious threat for the new local authorities. The city council in Gorlovka kept working within the new framework of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic and showed no signs of non-allegiance.
4. This video (in Russian) published on April 22, 2014 presents deputy Rybak’s wife, still unaware of his assassination, announcing that her own “independent investigation” with three unnamed “assistants” suggest that her husband was kidnapped by the “separatists”. She did not provide any proof for her claims. We are sure that having announced this version, she virtually signed a capital sentence for her husband.
5. There is a clear motive for the interim Kievan administration to create a pretext for the re-launch of “counter-terrorist operation” in the East. They needed an ‘innocent martyr” to justify unpopular war against Russian-speaking civilians in Donetsk and other rebellious regions. Vladimir Rybak was almost ideal candidate for such plot. Moreover, he was a full namesake of the former speaker of Supreme Rada Vladimir Rybak (party of Regions), who has likely made a deal with Turchinov’s conglomerate shortly after the coup in Kiev, an aspect that guaranteed additional media splash.
The provisional Kievan administration, instigated by their patrons from Washington, is still losing precious time plotting provocations like they did in Kiev on the eve of the February coup instead of trying to negotiate and meet the legitimate demands of the Russian-speaking belt of Ukraine. Looks like they just do not have any political weight to enter such negotiations. If that’s true, their days in power in Kiev are counted.
Comments