You're reading: Human rights activist says police beat him in Kharkiv Oblast; police deny allegations

On Jan. 29, Kostyantyn Reutskiy, a human rights activist, alleges that police at the Pisochyn checkpoint in Kharkiv Oblast beat him as he was on his way back to Kyiv from the war zone.

Reutskiy was on assignment with Hromadske TV journalist Anastasia Stanko and Pawel Pieniazek, a journalist from Poland. They were driving from Popasna to Kyiv when their car was stopped by three police officers around 10 p.m. The officers didn’t give their names, but asked to check the car and their belongings, Reutskiy recalls. Police, however, tell a different story.  

According to officials, the journalists provoked the conflict. “When police officers decided to check the car, the journalist said you’re checking our car, because you have nothing else to do,” reads the official statement. “When the driver tried to get something out of his pocket, police officers blocked the movement. The driver considered it was an attack on him and fell on the ground, while police officers tried to help him.” 

The head of the Kharkiv Oblast police, Anatoliy Dmytriev, said he will personally follow the case.

Reutskiy says that he decided to film the police stop with his GoPro camera. “This made them angry, and when I reached in my pocket to put it back, they pushed me on the car and twisted my arms,” he says. 

Stanko, who witnessed the incident, said the police officers later pushed Reutskiy to the ground, yelling insults. When she tried to take the pictures of the beating, one of the officers pushed her. 



Police officers beat Kostyantyn Reutskiy, a human rights activist, at the Pisochyn checkpoint in Kharkiv Oblast. (Nastya.stanko/Facebook)

“I was shocked,” Stanko explains. “We spent lots of time in the east and saw many police officers who are ready to help and who risk their lives in the war zone. And we haven’t seen such treatment.” 

Some 50 civic activists and journalists protested against police abuse outside the Interior Ministry in Kyiv on Jan. 30. 

Reutskiy believes the police officers were from the now disbanded Berkut riot police unit. When the officers seized his camera, Reutskiy was freed. 

“We immediately called the police, they came in a while,” Reutskiy explains. “Even Khrakiv Oblast Governor Ihor Baluta made it to the site. They offered me money for the camera, but I didn’t need it.”

Reutskiy, who has bruises on his head and hands, wants the police officers to be punished. He often travels to the war zone and said he’s never experienced such abuse before.

The group spent six hours at the checkpoint before police wrote a report. Police returned the camera minus its flash card.

Stanko believes the hostility was triggered by the Luhansk license plate on the car. Reutskiy, a Luhansk native, is also the coordinator of Vostok SOS (East SOS), a volunteer support center that helps displaced people and those still living in the war zone. 

Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected]