The Russian Investigative Committee has completed a criminal investigation against members of the nationalistic organization Ukrainian People's Assembly-Ukrainian People's Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO), charged with murders and other serious crimes committed in Chechnya in the 1990s, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said.
“The Investigative Committee’s main investigations department for the North Caucasus Federal District has completed an investigation into a criminal case in relation to participants in a gang made up of UNA-UNSO nationalistic organization members, Ukrainian citizens Mykola Karpiuk and Stanislav Klykh,” Markin said.
Klykh and Karpiuk have been charged with leading and participating in a gang, killing two or more people in the line of duty, and attempts on the lives of two or more people in the line of duty, Markin said.
“The radical rightist militarized political organization UNA-UNSO was set up in Ukraine in the early 1990s. It adhered to nationalistic ideology, and its objectives and goals included opposition to Russian authorities in any form and the extermination of Russian citizens of Russian ethnicity,” Markin said.
“Sharing said objectives and goals, Ukrainian citizens Mykola Karpiuk, Stanislav Klykh, Oleksandr Malofeyev, Oleksandr Muzychko, and other individuals joined it in Ukrainian territory at the time,” Markin said.
“In light of the establishment of consolidated armed groups in Chechnya starting in 1991, aiming to violently separate it from Russia and set up an independent Islamic state in its territory, and the start of military actions to restore constitutional order in Chechnya, Karpiuk, Muzychko and other people, staying in Ukrainian territory in December 1994, were actively involved in organizing consolidated armed groups made up of the most radical UNA-UNSO members to join the armed conflict in Russian territory on the side of the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria,” Markin said.
At the same time, Karpiuk, together with Dmytro Korchynsky and other UNA-UNSO leaders and members, traveled from Ukraine to the Chechen republic so as to join members of the gangs led by Aslan Maskhadov, Shamil Basayev, and other individuals operating in the republic’s territory to attack and kill civilians, Russian armed forces servicemen and law enforcement officials, Markin said. In particular, following orders from the gang leaders, Karpiuk and Muzychko led a gang called Viking, which also included UNA-UNSO members Dmytro Yarosh, Yuriy Dovzhenko, Oleksandr Malofeyev, Stanislav Klykh, and others, he said.
“From December 1994 to January 1995, Karpiuk, Klykh, Malofeyev and other gang members repeatedly took active part in combat clashes with Russian armed forces servicemen in the territory of the presidential palace, the Minutka square, and the railway station of Grozny, in which they took the lives of at least 30 servicemen and caused injuries of varying degrees to at least 13 servicemen,” Markin said.
“At the present time, the investigation has gathered sufficient evidence, which is why the criminal case against Karpiuk and Klykh, including an endorsed indictment, has been forwarded to a court to be considered on its merits,” he said.
A criminal case against Oleksandr Malofeyev, a citizen of Ukraine and a member of the Viking gang, was earlier separated from the principal criminal case, as he concluded a pretrial collaboration agreement with the investigation, Markin said. This case and the indictment have also been forwarded to courts, he said.
