Oleksandr Knyga, local figure and member of the Kherson Regional Council, was abducted Wednesday morning by the Russians in this occupied area. Released, he relates to the “world” these “hours of stress”.
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The removal of Oleksandr Knyga started as in the movies. It’s even that that has troubled it. The Kherson Theater Director, kidnapped Wednesday, March 23 by the Russians, then released in the evening, told the world’s telephone these “stress hours” with tragicomic accents.
It’s 7 am when he sees a dozen armored jeep landed at home, in Olechky, near Kherson, the first big Ukrainian city fell under the control of the Russians. “We could see machine guns from the windows, the whole court was encircled by the military”, tells this cultural figure of 62 years, also a member of the regional council and leader of a small local party. “My family woke up. I was asked to move forward in the house. Armed men stood in my back, with a bullets shield. Honestly, at that time, fear left me left , and I started laughing, “says Knyga. The Russians are so numerous that he asks them if there are still others in the house and if they are not afraid. “They searched the whole house, told me a little in my library, have checked our social networks, then they told me to prepare my business and took me outside. Almost the whole area was looped.” / p>
His captors board him with three Russian soldiers. “We rolled up to Kherson. The funniest is that at that time the Ukrainian radio passed a song on Bayraktar,” the name of the Turkish drones bought by Ukraine to counter Russia. This song, released the March 1, insults the Russian and critical army the invasion. It has become very popular in the country.
The convoy stops at the Kherson regional administration, then elected, blindfolded, is found in an empty cell. “I was asked who I was and why I was here. Then men took me, took my fingerprints and photos.” His kidnappers are hidden, but Oleksandr Knyga includes, during the course of the interrogation, “that it is not simple soldiers but officers, probably secret services”.
“I feel that they can not understand”
Why have it removed him? “They were looking for me as a public character.” The director of the theater was probably all the more suspect that many employees of his establishment participate in the events that take place every day against occupation in the Kherson area. “People were tired of being afraid, to hear explosions and sit in the basements. They are happy to see each other at the gatherings,” says Knyga.
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