Ukraine political police question parents of Odessa resistance leader

December 14: Just now, agents of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) came to my parents’ home and questioned them in a criminal case, No. 22013160000000289.

Two main questions were asked: What am I doing in the Lugansk People’s Republic, and what business do I have with [Andrei] Yakovenko.

For those who are not familiar with the topic, Yakovenko was an Odessa Komsomol leader who, back in 2001, was trying to establish a Black Sea Soviet Republic — distributing leaflets calling for the overthrow of state authority in the military, bombing the SBU office in Kiev, and forming an armed group to carry out expropriations. In 2002, the group was arrested. Everyone got long prison sentences – more than a decade.

Some members were freed before the events of winter 2013-14. One of them was Alexander Gerasimov, who was among the defenders of the House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014, where he received severe burns. At the time, Andrei Yakovenko was still jailed in Torez, and in July 2014 he was released by the Supreme Council of the Donetsk People’s Republic. 

Judging by the number of the criminal case, it was initiated in 2014.

We must pay tribute that the SBU officers behaved very correctly.

Well, my parents did not have to feel uncomfortable responding to their questions, since I do not report on my activities to them, though I have nothing to hide. I always speak openly about the struggle.

With Yakovenko (as with other “terrorists” and “separatists”) we have one great common cause — the overthrow of the Nazis and the oligarchs and the release of our native city. Odessa will be free!

P.S.: in 2007 or 2008, a film was made about the Yakovenko group. You can see it here:

Translated by Greg Butterfield