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Igor Girkin
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INTERNET
SOURCE: http://mashable.com/2014/07/10/evidence-of-execution-trial-discovered-in-the-rubble-of-rebel-headquarters-in-ukraine/#kcuWzPGX7Oqa
Soot-Stained Documents
Reveal Firing Squad Executions in Ukraine
By
Christopher Miller (11 July 2014)
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The abandoned office of Igor Strelkov,
commander of the Donetsk People's Republic. The execution orders were found in
this building.
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SLOVIANSK,
Ukraine – At first glance, the carefully worded, soot-stained document adorned
with an official stamp looks like a weathered decree from World War II.
But
dust it off and take a closer look and it becomes clear that it’s an execution
order. It was signed off by the enigmatic commander-in-chief Igor Strelkov on June 17 and delivered by a
military tribunal of the self-styled rebel government of the Donetsk People’s
Republic (DNR), the breakaway territory that voted to secede from Ukraine in a
sham referendum in May.
Buried
beneath ash and debris inside the city of Sloviansk’s security services
building, or SBU, the command center of the separatist uprising that has
engulfed the country since April, it convicts Alexei Borisovich Pichko, 31, of
“looting to an exceptional measure of punishment – execution by firing squad –
on the basis of the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR ‘on martial law’
from June 22nd, 1941.”
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An order signed by rebel commander Igor Strelkov
sentences Alexei Borisovich Pichko to death by firing squad for the crime of
looting.
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Part
2 of the execution order
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Page 3 of the execution order.
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he
document was recovered by Mashable
on July 7, two days after thousands of separatist militiamen fled Sloviansk
following weeks of shelling by Ukrainian government forces and consolidated
their forces in the regional center of Donetsk.
It
was found along with another order to execute two members of the rebel militia
– Dmitry Georgyovich “Bolgar” Slavov and Nikolai Alexandrovich “Luka” Lukyanov
– convicted by the military tribunal for kidnapping a local man, looting his
home and jailing him in the basement of the SBU without permission from
Strelkov.
A
rebel fighter who asked that he remain anonymous because he was not allowed to
speak to journalists confirmed their execution, saying that he had been
stationed in Sloviansk at the time. Local media first reported news of the
men’s deaths last month, but had not confirmed their execution. Strelkov acted
as chairman of their tribunal, according to documents. He signed the order
“Strelkov,” but also printed the name “Girkin Igor Vsevolodovich” beneath.
In
a third case, another militiaman – Alexander Valeryevich Pyrozhenko – narrowly
escaped a firing squad when he was acquitted of treason following an incident
in which he shined a flashlight at night during a firefight with Ukrainian
government forces, a move his comrades deemed to be “treason” for giving away
their position. Pyrozhenko confirmed his case by phone.
Sloviansk,
typically a peaceful resort city of some 120,000 residents, was the epicenter
of Ukraine’s battle with separatists and a notoriously dark place during the
rebel occupation. After heavy shelling by both the Ukrainian and rebel forces
over the course of the past two months, much of the city has been reduced to
rubble. Its SBU building was a dungeon in which rebels held dozens of
journalists, activists and locals in captivity, and in grotesque conditions.
On
Monday, rancid food sat on a makeshift table in the building’s musty basement.
A bar of soap used for washing sat on a windowsill nearby. Stuck to a wall was
a plastic bottle used to gather drinking water from a leak in the ceiling. On
the floor were three damp mattresses covered in stains. Dozens of flies buzzed
around the room, which was illuminated only slightly from a small window
adorned with bars.
Vice News’
Simon Ostrovskiy was held in the basement for three days after being captured
by rebels, as were other journalists. But there are few who spent as much time
in the building’s dank cellar as Irma Krat, a Kiev-based Ukrainian journalists
who was detained by the rebels in April for “spying” and only freed after they
fled the city last Saturday. Mashable
found her passport and press card amid the scorched remains on the building’s
first floor. She has since escaped and is now safe in Kiev.
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The soot-stained passport and press ID of
Irma Krat found by Mashable
inside the Sloviansk SBU building where she was held for more than two months
before escaping on July 5.
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Signed
by Strelkov, a war re-enactment enthusiast with a pencil-mustache and Moscow
residency also known as Igor Girkin, who Ukraine and the West believe to be an
active officer of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, the death
sentence of Pichko is an example of the severity and anachronism in which the
self-styled republic is governed as well as the darkness that enshrouded the
resort city of Sloviansk during the three months of rebel occupation.
Pichko,
31, was tried and convicted on June 17 for stealing two shirts and a pair of
pants from his neighbors’ home on the outskirts of Sloviansk on June 14. After
the family had fled the city, he hopped a gate and broke in through a window on
the backside of the house. Another neighbor led Mashable through his backyard to examine the
window. Pointing to a space covered by a sheet of plywood, the man said, “he
broke in there.”
Seven
witnesses, including Pichko’s best friends, testified in the case. The tribunal
presiding over the matter included six men subordinate to Strelkov: chairman
Viktor Yuriyevich, known as “Nose”; members Vyacheslav “Baloo” Anatolevich and
Mikhail “Grey” Aleksandrovich; prosecutor Yuri Vladimirovich, also known as
“Lawyer”; defense counsel Aleksandr “Bison” Viktorovich; and secretary Sergei
“Tryphon” Ivanovich.
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On June 29, at noon, a solemn consecration ceremony
of the banner of the 1st Volunteer Battalion of Slavyansk took place
in the Svyato-Voskresenskiy temple in the city of Slavyansk.
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Pichko,
a convicted criminal released in March after serving more than four years in
prison for armed robbery, was apprehended by militiamen out front of a
neighbor’s home on June 15 and tossed in the SBU cellar, according to
neighbors. They said four militiamen in fatigues – two with Kalashnikov rifles
– seized Pichko around 4 p.m. that day. “They came and took him… and we saw
nothing else,” one woman said.
Maria
Vasylovna Pichko, 61, Alexei’s mother, told Mashable
on Thursday that she had not seen her son since he was taken nearly a month
ago. She said her husband, Boris Fyodorovich Pichko had gone to the SBU
building to inquire about Alexei “three days after” he was taken. By that time,
however, according to the document, he had already been sentenced to death.
Maria
Vasylovna was not aware of the death sentence or his apparent execution until
speaking with Mashable
on Thursday. Upon hearing the news, she broke down in tears in front of her
home.
“For
two shirts… they shot him?” she said as she fought by tears. She said that her
son’s friend, Valentin, had told her “everything would be fine.”
It
wasn’t. According to a neighbor who asked that her name not be used in this
story, Alexei Pichko’s friend told her that his body “had been dumped on the
front lines” of the fighting after he was executed. Mashable could not verify his story.
Rounding
out the document, Strelkov writes that the sentence has been carried out.
“I warn all fighters and commanders of the DNR militia, and also residents of Sloviansk and the Sloviansk area, that any grievous crime committed in the zone of military activity will continue to be punished ruthlessly and decisively,” Strelkov says.“The command of the DNR militia will not allow unchecked criminality on the territory of Sloviansk or the Sloviansk region. Punishments for crimes will be unavoidable, regardless of the status and service of the criminal.”
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