” Have you read ten little niggers ? » Ksenia Pyatnitsa, elected mayor of Seredyna-Buda in northern Ukraine, climbs the stairs to her office at the end of an empty hallway. Dark glasses, white blouse, she comes from home to receive us in the deserted town hall, on this Friday in July, of this border town, crushed by heat and deceptive silence. “Here people only sleep with one eye open”, she said, and as in the Agatha Christie novel, “Death can strike at any time”.
Russia is there, very close, and the almost daily bombardments have already caused half of the 7,500 inhabitants of Seredyna-Bouda to flee. Just this morning, says Ksenia Pyatnitsa, shells fell on a nearby village. However, the shootings are not enough to explain this air of haunted house that the town hall has taken on: since April 28, the mayor, Alexander Hen, has been in prison. He is suspected of having collaborated with the Russian army during the forty-day occupation of this region of northern Ukraine, at the start of the invasion.
According to the prosecutor’s office in the Sumy region, where Seredyna-Buda is located, Alexander Hen is suspected of having proclaimed the advent of Russian authority over the city and told the local militia not to resist. He is also said to have had a fortification located at the border post dismantled and transmitted information concerning the positions and forces of Ukrainian units. His name would finally appear on a list of detainees and prisoners of war that Russia would like to exchange.
Indicted for supplying alcohol to Russian soldiers
A red flag for the Ukrainian authorities, who have made the hunt for collaborators a priority. “In the event of a new attack, the enemy must not be able to take advantage of their help again”, explains Oleksiï Liashenko, vice-prosecutor of the Sumy region, where a hundred agents would devote themselves to these delicate investigations. According to his services, only five people had been convicted as of June 30, but 202 investigations have already been opened for offenses ranging from undermining the territorial integrity of Ukraine to advocating the invasion.
On its website, the Soumy prosecutor’s office publishes press releases on these facts of varying gravity almost daily. On June 2, two 26-year-old men were arrested on suspicion of having transmitted images of Ukrainian military positions to the Russian secret services. On June 7, another was arrested for calling the Russian invasion a” coaching “, and painted a large “Z” (symbol of Russian forces) on a wall in his village. On June 27, a woman was indicted for supplying alcohol and tobacco to Russian soldiers in exchange for freedom of movement.
“I don’t want to be questioned”
In this avalanche of cases ranging from pitiful to hangable, Mayor Alexander Hen is rightfully in the worst category. Except that in Seredyna-Bouda, these accusations go badly. “I prefer not to comment on an ongoing investigation,” reluctant first Ksenia Pyatnitsa, who has just joined the first deputy, Oleh Zagorski. “Besides, I don’t want anyone to come and question me again…” You first have to gain a semblance of trust before the tongues loosen a little.
First, they say, Seredyna-Bouda was “not really” occupied. True, the Russian army held its surroundings, but it did not enter the city. “The mayor never said that we had to recognize Russian authority, affirm Oleh Zagorski. The Ukrainian flag has never been lowered, and he told the family (militia) that they should resist, and not hesitate to kill him if the Russians tried to kidnap him! »
All this, says Ksenia Pyatnitsa, “It’s the border post’s fault”. Before the war, many people here used to go for their shopping or their medical treatment in Russia. Some have relatives buried there. When the invasion came, the mayor would have been reproached for not having prevented them from going there. “People had diabetes, they had to stay at home to die? »
“If he was guilty, he would have fled!” »
Alexander Hen would not have gone to Russia, but he admits having met the Russians and negotiated with smugglers for the delivery of gasoline for the townspeople and the farmers of the surroundings. “We are simply accused of having survived”, s’indigne Ksenia Pyatnitsa. “If he was guilty, he would have fled: the border is right there! », Rencherite Oleh Zagorski.
The border. It is found at the end of a street lined with wooden houses. Stacked concrete blocks block the road, in front of a row of anti-tank obstacles. Ukrainian border guards left on the first day of the war. Only the local dogs still pass freely from one side to the other. Barely a hundred meters beyond the border, a Russian flag floats threateningly above a sentry box.
The inhabitants met in the street praise the ability of the mayor to have supplied the city in these difficult times. “We never had a day without bread! », exclaims Tatiana Kankova, 75, part of whose house extends behind the fortifications. According to residents and elected officials, it is the town hall that would have supervised their installation. They are annoyed by the fact that the investigators did not come to make observations on the spot, judging the place too dangerous – which the prosecutor’s office confirms to The cross.
“People wanted to harm him”
Some claim, on the other hand, that the mayor would have been the victim of “gossip”, of enmities long before the invasion. “There are people who wanted to harm him,” says a relative wishing to remain anonymous. According to him, several individuals would have written letters of denunciation against Alexander Hen, including a former teacher, whom the mayor had pushed to resign four years earlier. Reason: this teacher refused to see the sports teams of the two schools in the city merging…
The Seredyna-Bouda affair is not the only one in the Sumy region in which accusations of collaboration dovetail with old rivalries. In Bourine, a town of 8,500 inhabitants two hours’ drive further south, Mayor Viktor Ladukha was detained for a month after being denounced by opponents of the municipal council… whom he himself had previously designated as “collaborators”. . Released on bail after receiving the support of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, he proclaims his innocence and prepares his defense.
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Purification in security services
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suspended, on Sunday July 17, the head of the security services as well as the general prosecutor of the country because of suspicions of treason by some of their subordinates.
Ukrainian authorities are currently investigating 651 cases of suspected treason by members of the judiciary or law enforcement agencies.
Ukrainian Interior Minister said in June that the collaboration had posed no “deadly problem” to Ukraine.
military experts however, suspect treason of having notably facilitated the rapid conquest of the Kherson region by Russia.