A Look At The Savage Murder Of A Local Ukrainian Politician

Marko Djurica/Reuters

In Cold Blood in Ukraine -- Jamie Dettmer, Daily Beast

The savage murder of a local politician is tied to the network of Russian agents, mobsters and local thugs now running much of eastern Ukraine.

KIEV, Ukraine — They left home early on the day he went missing—she for the clinic where she works as a gynecologist and he…she isn’t exactly sure where. It was April 17 and he had promised to be home early to prepare for Easter weekend but the next time she saw him six agonizing days later he was lying dead on a gurney with his face smashed.

Forty-two-year-old policeman-turned-politician Volodymyr Rybak was a city councilor in the eastern Ukrainian town of Horlivka, right in the heart of Ukraine’s so-called Bermuda Triangle where dozens have gone missing in the past few weeks, victims of pro-Russian separatist goon squads. He had angered militants by trying to pull down their flag atop a local municipal building to replace it with the Ukrainian banner. He had been bundled into a car by masked gunmen.

Friends had snuck Elena Rybak past pro-Russian separatist checkpoints and slipped her into the morgue of the neighboring town of Slovyansk, a stronghold of armed pro-Russian militiamen in the region, to confirm her worst fears.

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My Comment: The murder of Volodymyr Rybak is what ended the "Easter truce" in eastern Ukraine .... resulting in the escalation of violence that is now gripping the country today. One day there will be an accounting for all of these atrocities .... and I hope that for the family of Volodymyr Rybak there will be some justice.