Ex-FSB Officer Said Three Belarusians Kidnapped Him and Took Him to Ukraine

The Russian told a detective story with an injection, a car, and a basement.

The trial of three Belarusians, who are accused of abducting and secretly transporting former FSB officer Roman Fialkovsky to Ukraine, is coming to an end in the Moscow region. The defense of the defendant in the case presented a new version of the events of that day, lenta.ru reports with reference to Kommersant.

On September 11, 2018, a former FSB officer was detained by Ukrainian border guards while trying to get to Russia. During the search, a pen for hidden audio recording, a removable drive with classified data, and a military ID with a record of service in the FSB were seized from him. Fialkovsky was prosecuted for the smuggling of spy equipment and then sentenced to a fine. Now he is put on the wanted list by the Ukrainian authorities, as he was suspected of collecting data on the grouping of troops in the Donbas.

Returning to Russia, the ex-intelligence officer appealed to the TFR and said that three Belarusians, including the builder Andrei Tseika living in Russia, entered his cottage, gave him an injection that made it impossible to resist, and, unnoticed by his wife and children, kidnapped him, taking the documents for Fialkovsky's car. Then he was taken to Ukraine and kept in a basement for several days, extorting either 15 or 50 million Russian rubles, after which he was released.

Investigators managed to detain only one alleged kidnapper, the builder Tseika, who is walking on crutches after a parachute jump. His defense assures that Fialkovsky voluntarily traveled abroad with the Belarusians, and then invented a story with the abduction in order to hide the fact of his trip to Ukraine. The same is confirmed by the confusion in his testimony, as well as by witnesses who noted that the audibility in the former officer's house would not have allowed him to be kidnapped unnoticed. In addition, before crossing the border with Ukraine, Fialkovsky contacted his acquaintance and calmly announced that he would soon return home, without mentioning the abduction.