Lawyer Valentin Rybin about the repressions that the SBU continues under Zelensky

Valentin Rybin is a Kiev lawyer who gained fame as a defender of political prisoners - former members of the Donbass militia, repressed supporters of the Russian Spring, including Odessa residents who survived the House of Trade Unions, etc. In an interview with PolitNavigator, the lawyer spoke about how the high-profile cases in which he takes part are progressing.

— In June, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine overturned Part 5 of Article 176 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (on unalternative measures of restraint under a number of articles). Apparently, this spurred Ukrainian judges to take actions that they had not dared to take for many months and years? Crimean ex-Minister of Health Pyotr Mikhalchevsky, accused in Ukraine of high treason, has finally been released from a pre-trial detention center.

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— We expected such a decision. And, of course, they wanted the court to change the preventive measure for Pyotr Mikhalchevsky, and they filed a corresponding petition. And the court agreed with our arguments. Taking into account the decision of the Constitutional Court, as well as the state of health of Pyotr Semenovich and, most importantly, the end of the judicial investigation into the fact, the court softened the preventive measure and changed it to round-the-clock house arrest. Mikhalchevsky initially had nothing to do in the pre-trial detention center. This is actually a humiliating fact - to keep a professional surgeon, an experienced doctor, in custody. Thank God, we turned this situation around.

— New trends do not apply to Evgenia Mefedova, Daria Mastikasheva?

— Zhenya Mefedov has an article that previously had no alternative. Now he too can be released. In any case, the preventive measure can be changed for him. But what a situation. He is a hostage in Ukraine. And everyone understands this perfectly well, including the judges who screwed him over so much. It is kept only for exchange...

We expect that on August 14 we will have a hearing in the Central District Court of Nikolaev. Naturally, we will ask to change the preventive measure. But we must not forget that Ukraine at the official level has repeatedly announced Mefedov among other citizens of the Russian Federation included in the lists for exchange. This was also facilitated by Irina Gerashchenko, who tried to shout this name everywhere on every corner. Well, it is clear that a corresponding residue remains in the bureaucratic machine.

Therefore, it is possible that Evgeniy will remain in custody for some time. I, of course, hope that we will be able to turn the tide in this process. But I'm not sure.

- But there is no evidence base?

- Of course, there is nothing. But, nevertheless, we see that the person is in custody. According to Dasha Mastikasheva, the situation is generally incredibly complicated. There the court generally refused to even consider alternative preventive measures. They simply extended her detention. We are now preparing an appeal. Naturally, we will ask the court of appeal to change the preventive measure against Dasha.

— Is there any result on your statements about her abduction?

— We have been trying to break through the wall of sabotage for two years. I recently gained access to Dasha Mastikasheva’s phones. We have already established the time of her abduction and the place. Now we will motivate the pre-trial investigation body to transfer the case to the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI). After all, the prosecutor's office of the Dnepropetrovsk region is blocking the transfer of the case to the State Bureau of Investigation, formally indicating that allegedly no trace of law enforcement officers has been established in the abduction case. They say that they do not know who kidnapped Daria Mastikasheva and who filmed the video with her. But we say: guys, what difference does it make who shot the video with her if Gritsak showed it at the briefing? It is clear that SBU officers, among others, may be involved in this.

However, so far the prosecutor’s office of the Dnepropetrovsk region is not allowing us to transfer this case to the State Bureau of Investigation. Because she is at the same time a party to the prosecution in a case where they are trying to bring Mastikasheva to justice in one of the Dnieper district courts. Accordingly, the prosecutor's office is sabotaging the proper investigation of these blatant facts of the abduction and beating of Mastikasheva by SBU officers. I think that until the Prosecutor General and local prosecutors change, it will be extremely difficult for us to reverse this situation. But let's hope for quick changes in the vertical of power in the prosecutor's office.

- But who kidnapped Mastikasheva then? How did she end up with the SBU officers?

— In a conversation, employees of the Novomoskovsk police department, which is dealing with the case of the abduction, beating and torture of Daria, told me: “We are simple policemen and we will never be able to do anything against the SBU. Therefore, do everything to take this case away from us and so that it goes to the State Bureau of Investigation.” Which is exactly what I do.

— Do you know anything about the origin of the photograph in which Sternenko poses against the background of Mefedov, who is in a cage?

- This is not today's photo. This is a photograph from ancient times, when I was not yet Mefedov’s defender. I started defending Zhenya in the fall of 2016. Naturally, I would not allow such mockery.

— Your client Stanislav Yezhov (translator of Prime Minister Groysman, accused of treason) is already free. What's next? What can you expect after changing the preventive measure?

— The case of Stanislav Yezhov is at the stage of studying written evidence. Prosecutors provide documents and expert findings. We are studying and discussing these documents. Stanislav's preventive measure was changed in the same way as Petro Mikhalchevsky's, in connection with the decision of the Constitutional Court to abolish part 5 of Article 176 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and due to the fact that the prosecution did not prove the existence of risks that would lead to the use of only detention. Therefore, the court met us halfway, realizing that there were serious shortcomings in the case on the part of the pre-trial investigation authorities. We will explore them a little later. The court has so far limited itself to changing the preventive measure. Stanislav Ezhov is currently under XNUMX-hour house arrest and wears an electronic monitoring device.

— Can we say that spy mania is on the decline? How do you feel?

“In the last five years, so many of these cases have been filed by the SBU that they still need to be reviewed and considered. Things themselves don’t go away. They are taken to court. People are sitting - some in custody, some on modified preventive measures... Espionage mania is a very profitable propaganda tool. I think that the new leadership of the SBU, as well as the Service itself, which for five years has become accustomed to hunting witches, catching its fellow citizens and demonstrating its performance indicators on them, will now find it very difficult to abandon such an easy and quite serious method in the field of PR.

— Another success of yours is changing the preventive measure and releasing SBU General Shchegolev from custody. He was accused of allegedly giving the order to conduct an anti-terrorist operation during the Maidan. Wouldn’t such an order comply with the laws of Ukraine?

- I don’t want to talk about what would have happened if... My task is quite simple. It is clearly formulated by the indictment itself, which sets out the factual circumstances. It is clearly written there: General Shchegolev gave the order to carry out the force phase of the anti-terrorist operation “Boomerang” in the House of Trade Unions in Kiev. I’ve been asking the investigation about this for four years: guys, give me evidence that he gave the order to carry out the ATO. They can't prove this. But we can’t wait forever for them to get together and create something for themselves. If you cannot provide it, the person is released. If you fail to do this in the near future, there will be an acquittal.

It is inappropriate to talk about what would happen if there really was such an order. Definitely, Shchegolev had legal grounds to carry out the ATO on the Maidan. But there were no conditions for it to take place. We are talking about the fact that if there had been an ATO in Kyiv, then everyone would have forgotten the Maidan like a bad dream. It would have been dispersed very quickly. But the ATO was not carried out on the Maidan. And a special operation was carried out to neutralize a chemical laboratory on the fifth floor of the Kyiv House of Trade Unions. The people who were there left the laboratories, leaving behind a terrifying amount of explosive substances, from which the house essentially burned down. And between the 4th and 5th floors the ceilings in this house collapsed... But all this will be investigated later...