<\/a>ESHA KRISHNASWAMY<\/a>\u00b7<\/strong>JULY 30, 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n After banning virtually his entire political opposition, publishing a blacklist of foreign journalists and academics accused of advancing \u201cRussian propaganda,\u201d and ramming through a law exempting 70% of Ukrainians from workplace protections, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy has freed from prison fascist militants convicted of some of the most heinous crimes the country has seen since World War II. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to a July 11 report in Ukrainian media<\/a>, Ruslan Onishenko, commander of the now-disbanded Tornado Battalion, was freed as part of President Zelensky\u2019s scheme to release prisoners with combat experience. Along with an unwavering commitment to fascism, Onishenko is known as a psychopathic sadist who was involved in sexually assaulting children, brutally torturing prisoners, and murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Onishenko\u2019s release follows a February 27 order by Zelensky to free other convicted former Tornado members like Danil \u201cMujahed\u201d Lyashuk<\/a>, a fanatic from Belarus who has openly emulated ISIS and boasted of torturing captives for sheer enjoyment. According to Zelensky<\/a>\u2018s decree, prisoners with combat experience would be allowed to \u201ccompensate for their guilt\u201d by fighting in the \u201chottest spots.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back in 2015, when the Ukrainian state provided official support to his Tornado Battalion, Onishenko texted two fellow \u201cpatriots,\u201d Voldomor and Svetlana Savichuk, propositioning Svetlana Savichuk to \u201csuck my cock in front of the [toddler] children.\u201d (See screenshots of the conversation here<\/a>). He also asked Savichuk to perform lewd acts on her children for his viewing pleasure. Despite the magnitude of his crimes, which included torture, murder, rape \u2013 including that of children \u2013 kidnapping, amputation, and more, Onishenko was sentenced to a mere 11 years in prison on April 11, 2017. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, after serving just five years of his sentence, the convicted predator has been freed by a president hailed by Western patrons as a defender of democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zelensky\u2019s move is not just a signal of desperation as his military is ground down by Russian forces in the east. It extends the virtual impunity that Ukrainian battalions infested with hardened criminals and neo-Nazis have enjoyed for over eight years as official enforcers of the post-Maidan regime\u2019s rule.<\/p>\n\n\n Back in February 2014, when the US-backed Euromaidan coup drove out Ukraine\u2019s democratically elected president, the new regime in Kiev faced a crisis. All across the country, military units and local governments were still filled with ethnic Russians and other supposedly \u201cunpatriotic\u201d elements. Ethnic Russian politicians mostly from the east were branded as \u201cradical deputies\u201d and kidnapped, hunted down or otherwise forced to flee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On February 23, 2014 Oleksandr Valentynovych Turchynov became acting President of Ukraine and enacted sweeping legislation without an electoral or constitutional mandate. Across Ukraine, a majority of citizens refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new coup regime. Areas east of the Dnieper river inhabited by a large number of Russian speakers, Jews, Muslims, and other national minorities would soon become targets of right-wing paramilitaries like Onishenko\u2019s Tornado battalion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the eastern cities of Lugansk<\/a>, Donetsk<\/a>, Mariupol<\/a>, Odessa<\/a> and Kharkiv<\/a>, residents besieged local government buildings and buildings of the Ukrainian security services to create pressure for a referendum on independence. Neither the local military nor the police tried to stop these protesters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to a 2016 US military report<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Certainly, no armed resistance was met by the pro-Russian forces in the beginning. In fact, the true situation on the ground was even worse. According to the Ukrainian interior minister, up to 70 percent of police in the region had allowed or actively assisted the building takeovers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n When the post-Maidan government refused to give these citizens either a referendum or meaningful representation in the government, two of the eastern regional Oblasts, Donetsk and Lugansk, declared independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The post-Maidan government\u2019s crisis of legitimacy grew when Ukrainian military units sent to Donetsk to quell the rebellion ended up defecting<\/a> to the side of the anti-Maidan coup residents. Desperate to save his new regime, the unelected interim President Oleksandr Turchynov announced large-scale anti-terrorist operations in order to \u201cquell the terrorists\u201d in the east.<\/a> Yet the Ukrainian military remained obstinate, largely refusing to follow Kiev\u2019s orders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In April 2014, the 25th separate airborne brigade of the High Mobility Assault Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was sent to Donetsk to wage war on its residents. However, in the words of the embittered interim-president Turchynov on April 17, 2014 at the Verkhovna Rada, \u201cthe 25th separate Airborne Brigade, whose military showed cowardice and surrendered arms, will be disestablished\u2026 The Defense Ministry has received this instruction.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Turchynov sent a corresponding order to the Prosecutor-General\u2019s office demanding the criminal punishment of the disobedient servicemen. While the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense denied that the brigade defected to the side of the separatists, the unit\u2019s tanks began to fly the flag of the DNR<\/a>, as even mainstream Western media reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Days after the interim President \u201cdisbanded\u201d the 25th Brigade, the newly installed \u201cdeputy governor\u201d of Dnipropetrovsk announced<\/a> the formation of \u201cspecial forces\u201d in order to \u201cprotect the oblast\u201d from falling into \u201cRussia\u2019s hands.\u201d While the median Ukrainian salary for 2014 was 3480\u20b4 ($117 USD),<\/a> \u201cvolunteers\u201d for these battalions, according to the Deputy Governor of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Hennadiy Korban, received 29528\u20b4 ($1000) per month. That\u2019s nearly ten times<\/a> the average salary in Ukraine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After the loss of parts of the Oblasts of Lugansk and Donetsk and the entire peninsula of Crimea, Kiev believed that Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, with its large Russian-speaking population, would be the next Oblast to declare independence. Unable to rely on the Ukrainian military, nor the current police force, which they deemed to be \u201cinfiltrated by pro-Russian separatists,\u201d Kiev officially deputized the fascistic paramilitary forces that functioned as street muscle during the Maidan coup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In March 2014, Kiev passed a law establishing a \u201cnational guard\u201d which was to be overseen by the Ministry of the Interior.<\/a> With the consent of the then-Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, Ukrainian billionaire Igor Kholmoisky bankrolled the creation of some of the country\u2019s more notorious territorial defense forces. The first of these \u201cspecial police battalions,\u201d<\/a> Dnipro-1, was born from the oligarch\u2019s fortune. One of Kholmoisky\u2019s deputies, Boris Filatov, stated that the goal of these special battalions was to \u201cknit the country back together.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, the special battalions (Dobrobats) <\/em>recruited from the core of Maidan activists who battled the deposed president\u2019s riot police. Oleg Lyashko<\/a>, a self-styled \u201cpeople\u2019s deputy\u201d who founded the Radical Party and appeared on the main stage during the Euromaidan pro-coup rallies, attempted to establish his own Dobrobat<\/em> named \u201cUkraine.\u201d Because Lyaschko did not have the money to finance a formal battalion, his group would have to audition for support from oligarchs by volunteering to fight in the city of Torez in the Donetsk Oblast. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By this time, Ruslan Onishenko was known as a career criminal with three convictions for robbery, hooliganism, and unlawful imprisonment (kidnapping) under his belt. Born Ruslan Abalmaz, he adopted the family name of his wife, \u201cOnishenko,\u201d after Euromaidan. As a native of Torez, he became a central figure in the \u201ctest formation\u201d of Lyashko\u2019s new battalion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The plan to retake Torez from the separatists failed<\/a>, however, prompting Onishenko and his crew to flee to the neighboring city of Dnepropetrovsk, the home of billionaire Igor Kholmoisky<\/a>. Eventually, with the support of Minister of Interior Arsen Avakov and his deputy, right-wing political fixer Anton Gerashenko, Onishenko was able to convince Kholmoisky to finance a new battalion called \u201cShaktorysk.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n In June 2014, a public relations campaign for the Shaktyorsk Battalion began on EspressoTv<\/a>, the unofficial outlet of the \u201cspecial battalions,\u201d as well as on UkroTV<\/a>, lionizing Onishenko as \u201cthe one man who struggles for the soul of the country\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n That same month, Shaktorysk fighters underwent training under the auspices of the regional police headquarters. On July 8, 2014, the newly minted police unit officially \u201cgraduated\u201d and took its oath of office before being posted to Mariupol. <\/p>\n\n\n\nOnce condemned by Ukrainian officials and imprisoned for sadistic torture and the rape of minors, leaders of the notorious Tornado Battalion are free under Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s orders.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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