Members of Oleh Lyashko's Radical Party (RPL), standing up for their fellow member, Yaroslav Mesiats, achieved a local but significant victory. Irpen Prosecutor Myroslav Patskan, who organized the criminal prosecution of the MP candidate in Mesiats's 95th constituency, surrendered. On Tuesday, October 7, he was forced to hand over the fabricated case against Yaroslav to the Prosecutor General's Office. The Prosecutor General's Office agreed to address the atrocities occurring in Irpen only after a rally organized outside the office by Oleh Lyashko's fellow party members.
Corruption on the pitchfork
Last week, on October 1, activists from the People's Lustration Committee of the Kyiv-Svyatoshinsky District and the Irpin Region, along with a host of Radical Party candidates (Ihor Mosiychuk, Oleksandr Yurakov, Tatyana Grinchuk, and Yaroslav Godunok), as well as representatives of the Right Sector, the Tryzub organization, and soldiers on leave from the ATO zone, decided to speak frankly about their concerns with the head of the local election commission. Following the trash can lustration, the official, who is rightly suspected of election fraud, submitted his resignation.
They also went to see Irpin Prosecutor Myroslav Patskan, whom local residents accuse of widespread corruption. But he, determined to keep his suit and position intact, refused to talk to the people. He sent criminal thugs in his place, who beat up the committee members and the journalists covering their visit to the prosecutor's office.
The current dialogue with law enforcement took place on October 7 outside the Prosecutor General's Office. The residents of Irpin and members of Oleh Lyashko's Radical Party, who supported them, had only two demands for Prosecutor General Vitaliy Yarema. First, address Mr. Patskan's turbulent activities by ordering an internal investigation and suspending him from his duties in the meantime. Second, stop the abuse of Irpin City Council member Yaroslav Mesyats and his family by those who call themselves defenders of the law.
Local prosecutors decided to hold Yaroslav responsible for the public outrage he experienced on October 1st and placed him on the wanted list. Furthermore, they opened criminal proceedings against him for "Hooliganism" and "Seizure of Government Buildings."
The position of law enforcement officials left those who came to the Prosecutor General's Office perplexed, to put it mildly. "Just six months ago, the entire current leadership of our country, including Vitaliy Yarema, could have been imprisoned for seizing government buildings. And now they're framing a case against a deputy who legally entered the prosecutor's office. This is called political repression," said Yaroslav Godunok, a candidate for People's Deputy from the Radical Party.
Terror, Irpen style
In recent years, a large and close-knit family (called a mafia in Italian) has formed in Irpen and Bucha, consisting of law enforcement officers, local Party of Regions bigwigs, and young men with short hair and athletic builds. Apparently, this club of Irpen land and budget enthusiasts saw a threat in the political activities of Yaroslav Mesiats, who, with the support of the Radical Party, decided to run for parliament in the 95th single-mandate constituency. The escalation followed opinion polls, the results of which showed Mr. Mesiats's landslide victory in the elections.
The members of the People's Lustration Committee, who were attempting to renew the Irpen government, were labeled hooligans after they were attacked by skinhead "titushki." Several radical party members protesting were injured, one of whom ended up in the hospital with a double fracture of his jaw. But prosecutors charged the victims, not their skinhead defenders, thereby freeing them to engage in real terror.
Today, unknown assailants are assaulting Radical Party campaigners in Irpen with impunity, stealing printed materials, and smashing their cars. Advertising space owners are being threatened, forcing them to refuse to display campaign ads for an undesirable candidate. Yaroslav Mesyats himself and his family are being hunted. An ad was posted on the Irpen community website offering $15 for "deputy Mesyats, dead or alive." Bald-headed thugs, hoping for an easy buck, are keeping watch outside Yaroslav's house around the clock. To avoid becoming victims of kidnapping, his children are forced to hide in a safe house, and his wife, Marina, is only allowed to travel around town accompanied by her husband's friends.
Lyashko doesn't abandon his own
It's noteworthy that similar pressure on members of the Radical Party and its leaders has begun across Ukraine. Following the events of October 1st, TV assassins entrenched in the central television channels began to morally destroy not only Yaroslav Mesiats but also the leader of the Radical Party, Oleh Lyashko. They've already managed to pour a bucket of dirt on him, driving his mother to a heart attack. The 1+1 channel was particularly notable for disseminating false information about Oleh Lyashko's family. "Kolomoisky crossed a red line. After his latest lie on the 'plus' about my mother, she was hospitalized with a suspected heart attack... He's gone after my mother, my child, and my wife—I will not forgive this," Oleh Lyashko declared.
Under these circumstances, the Prosecutor General's Office's forced decision to remove the criminal case against Yaroslav Mesyats from the clutches of the Irpin prosecutor and objectively examine it appears to be a small but important step toward a shared victory. Mr. Patskan clearly falls under the newly adopted lustration law, which will sooner or later lead to his resignation. His current actions will be legally assessed. However, a wave of violence and lawlessness perpetrated by "titushki" (illegal criminals) is currently sweeping across the Irpin region and the Kyivo-Svyatoshinsky district. To stop it, Oleh Lyashko and his associates have already developed a program to purge the authorities of these evil spirits.
On October 8, singer Zlata Ognevich, a candidate for parliament from the Radical Party of Ukraine (RPL), visited Vyshneve. She expressed the party's position on the ongoing lawlessness and assured people that the Radical Party does not abandon its own in the war.
"A hunt has been declared on our leader and our activists. Just like Yaroslav, Mosiychuk and Godunok, who ousted the chairman of the Irpen Electoral Commission, and Andriy Lozovoy, who stood up for Yaroslav Mesyats outside the Prosecutor General's Office, and Grinchuk, and Yurakov, could also fall under the prosecutor's steamroller today... But we are one force, united by a single idea. We do not compromise or collude, we do not betray our own, and we do not retreat from our goals. And our unity greatly frightens the rebranded Party of Regions and other government "suckers." Well, let them be afraid," declared RPL activists present at the rally.
Politrada
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