The death of several servicemen in the unit guarding Yuzhmash was the result of an illegal money-making scheme using military personnel, and the suspect Artem Ryabchuk, whom the media reported as the killer of his colleagues, may in fact not be guilty.
This was stated at a press conference in Kyiv by Dmitry Pavlichenko, the lawyer of the suspect Artem Ryabchuk, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
He recalled that, according to this law “On the National Guard,” the National Guard is a government body that performs functions to protect the national interests of Ukraine. The lawyer said that the military unit where the tragedy occurred was not engaged in the functions assigned to the National Guard, but was earning money by illegally involving military personnel in commercial activities.
“The National Guard must act in accordance with the law. I have not seen anywhere that this was a commercial structure with profit-making functions. From open resources, I got a very interesting thing - military unit number 3021 earned 142 million hryvnia last year. Tell me, how did she earn such a sum of money if the legislator did not give her such powers?” the lawyer noted.
In addition, this military unit was created illegally. According to the registry, it was created on April 30, 1992. Its founder was the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But the Ministry of Internal Affairs was created on October 13, 2000, and the law on the National Police was signed on March 13, 2014.
“This means that military unit number 3021 is working with fake documents. This body is not only illegal, it does not exist in the legal field at all. This means that, under the auspices of the military unit, they set up a closed zone there, a commercial enterprise. On what basis are children sent to a commercial enterprise?
From what I learned, they actually set up a concentration camp there. At first I thought that they were some kind of psychopaths, because there is no such organ, everything is fake. Who gave the authority to arm this military unit, who had the right to some commercial organization to transfer our children to military service? They think that they are going to serve, but in fact they end up in some kind of slavery, where they are abused. And when the guys start defending themselves, they are simply killed.
Who gave the right in a commercial structure to protect a strategic object of national importance? Why isn’t anyone talking about this?” the lawyer was indignant.
He believes that the cause of the tragedy was hazing.
“There are several versions of the investigation. Our lawyers have already said that none of these versions coincide with reality. I'll tell you my point of view. According to the information I have, some kind of conflict occurred against the background of hazing. I think that the old-timers have begun to force themselves to stand guard. It is clear that people fall asleep there, it is very difficult. And this is already an emergency. And this is only one type of hazing, but there are others.
When I served in the Pacific Fleet, there was an order to separate old-timers from those who had served a short time, so that there would be fewer such offenses. In our case, there were about 10 old-timers and 10-12 young ones. How was it necessary to bring about, what kind of conflict situation was it necessary to create, so that there would actually be a shootout, a massacre? The video we saw shows that there was a massacre.
And who killed and whom he killed - the investigation needs to establish. But I believe that there was more than one shooter there. They talk about Artyom, but maybe he didn’t shoot at all, this needs to be established - there are ballistics, there is indirect evidence. Artyom was a young fighter, and there was a clash between new recruits and old-timers. I think that the investigation is obliged to change the article, because the deputy minister officially stated that hazing took place. And this is a different qualification,” the lawyer concluded.