Gunmen have started abducting people for ransom in Donbas, Federation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine President Mykhailo Volynets told Channel 112 on May 31.
According to him, recently in Antracyt (Lyhansk Oblast) gunmen have kidnapped an employee of the State Automobile Inspectorate, 27-year-old Volodymyr Davydenko, and are now demanding one million UAH for his release. Volynets has said that the father of the kidnapped employee was a well-known manager of the state’s haulage company in the past and also owns his own vehicle fleet.
“The separatists in this region have put together a dossier of every citizen who is skilled and intelligent, and can set up his own business. I think any kind of business, be it small, medium, or large, is under threat by the separatists’ actions,” stated the head of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine.
Volynets highlighted that the most active figure amongst the abductors is a citizen of Rostov-On-Don Oblast in Russia, a cossack. He often appears on local television, telling the local population that “they will reach Kyiv and go even further.”
“And when the miners were abducted in Donetsk Oblast, their pocket money was taken away from them. Murza [a Chechen] tore a golden chain off Oleksandr Gukov’s [a miner] neck and took it away together with a cross, cut a ring off his finger, as well as that of Kostya Museika, damaging their fingers as a result,” he told. According to Volynets, the looters often weren’t even wearing masks, since “they have no fear.” The families of the kidnapped are often trying to negotiate with the abductors.
“Right now we are trying to create a database of everyone who has been kidnapped, to identify the damages caused to them, both physical and mental. We are trying to find out who exactly has kidnapped them.
Unfortunately, there is no specific cooperation with the state agencies over here,” summed up Volynets.
Source: unian.ua
Translated by Dasha Darchuk, edited by Alya Shandra
