Just-Out-Of-Prison Taras Avatarau: I Was Abducted In Territory of Ukraine

The Belarusian believes that his arrest was a special operation.

Taras Avatarau, a citizen of Belarus, was released from the penal colony. He had been sentenced in April 2016 to 5 years in prison for illegal traffic and movement of explosives across the border. Avatarau himself is sure that the real reason for his arrest was his participation in hostilities on the territory of Ukraine as part of a volunteer battalion of the Ukrainian organization “Right Sector”, Radio Svaboda reports.

According to the investigation, Taras Avatarau was detained on the night of November 26, 2015 at the railway station in Minsk. During the arrest, they allegedly found a certificate of participation in the ATO, issued by the “Right Sector”, as well as cartridges and a charge from a grenade launcher.

At the trial, Avatarau himself admitted guilt unders the charges of illegal circulation of ammunition, but denied the charge of smuggling them, saying that a grenade had been planted on him in Belarus.

- When were you released? Have you fully served your term?

- I was released on November 26 at about 9 am. I served 5 years and 12 minutes, if you count from the time of my actual detention.

- How did you serve your sentence? There have been reports of threats of murder and rape.

- No, rape - this is impossible, just because of my lifestyle. And they threatened me with murder from the very beginning, the head of the colony tried several times to set me up, so that, if the prisoners had not killed me, then bring me to suicide, let's say. Fortunately, I had experience of serving sentences in a colony from other people, I had supporters, including certain people inside the administration of the correctional institution. Roughly speaking, I was informed in advance about the actions taken against me by the administration.

- What did you do in Belarus before going to Ukraine?

- I did not do anything in the territory of Belarus, since I had already lived in the territory of the Russian Federation and Ukraine for a long time.

- Do you have only Belarusian citizenship? Your mother told reporters that you wanted to get Ukrainian one, but did not have time.

- Yes, unfortunately, I didn't. I had already applied for citizenship, and I also had a residence permit, but I was not lucky. I was lured to Kyiv by the message of one of my acquaintances, and there they grabbed me. Now, getting Ukrainian citizenship is a lot of fun. Despite the fact that both the past and the current president of Ukraine did everything in words to give citizenship to the Belarusians who fought for the territorial integrity of Ukraine, in practice nothing was done.

As far as I know, not a single volunteer has received Ukrainian citizenship. Many of those whom I know have already managed to obtain Polish citizenship, citizenship of other countries, just to have at least some identity documents. Because if they use the Belarusian documents, the Belarusian special services can at any time bring them to criminal responsibility for “ideological mercenarism” (mercenarism without material reward, Article 133 of the Criminal Code of Belarus - edit.)

- Were you detained in Minsk or in Kyiv?

- It was an unofficial operation. Even if we can bring to justice those people who detained me on the territory of Ukraine, we will not be able to hold them responsible by tying them to the authorities of the Republic of Belarus. This is a key moment so that such detentions of citizens of the Republic of Belarus on the territory of foreign states do not occur further. If you have Belarusian citizenship, you can be kidnapped in any country and taken to Belarus. There they can press any charges against you without any evidence.

- So you were taken out of the territory of Ukraine?

- I suppose so.

- How did it happen?

- They took me directly to Kyiv, not far from the bus station. There was a man who knew where and when I would appear. This person informed the necessary people about it, and they detained me. They injected me with something, and took me by car across the official border. Since I was medicated, I could not do any action, such as escape. They handed me over through the Homel special police. For some time I was interrogated in the three-letter office, we will not say directly which organization. They interrogated me, realized that they could not bind me to mercenaries or any actions related to the war in Ukraine, and they began to judge me for taking an explosive device and weapons across the border.

- The Belarusians themselves, who fought for the “DPR” and “LPR”, admitted in an interview that they are not afraid of persecution upon returning to their homeland. Do you think that the Belarusian authorities have the same attitude to the “returnees” who fought on the side of the pro-Russian separatists and to those who went to Donbas to support Ukraine?

- I will not give my name, but I will say this fact: the operative officer of the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption of Belarus, who was in charge of my case, participated in hostilities on the territory of the “Lugansk People's Republic”. Most of the Belarusians who fought on the side of the “DPR” and “LPR” served in the internal troops or riot police, or were employees of other power structures and were almost officially seconded there. According to the lists that I saw, when they transferred to the service in the “DPR” or “LPR” they even retained the title they had in Belarus. This can only be done by official requests. Those fighters who fought on the side of Ukraine were largely forced to fight in volunteer battalions, and not in the National Guard, because they could not confirm their military ID and specialty. In Belarus, they simply did not respond to their requests. And for those who fought on the side of the “DPR” and “LPR”, nearly the record of service was kept.