Pro-Ukrainian activist arrested in Crimea for a month

On December 12, the Razdolnensky District Court of Crimea issued a decision to arrest pro-Ukrainian activist Volodymyr Balukh for 30 days. This was reported by the Crimean Human Rights Group.

The prosecution, insisting on the arrest of Balukh, motivated this by the fact that he did not renounce Ukrainian citizenship and has a passport of Ukraine. During the court session, the judge refused to satisfy the motion of the defense, which demanded that the prosecutor be challenged, since he had previously acted as a prosecutor in another criminal case against Balukh.

Volodymyr Balukh is in the status of a suspect in a criminal case on illegal possession of weapons and ammunition. During another search on December 8 in the activist's house, FSB officers found cartridges and dynamite in the attic. According to the Crimean Human Rights Group, there is reason to believe that these items were planted during the search to falsify the criminal case.

After the search, Balukh was detained and kept in the Razdolnensky detention center.

As told to the publication "Crimea. Realii” coordinator of the “Crimean Human Rights Group” Olga Skrypnik, the behavior of the head of the detention facility, in particular, speaks about the political motive in the persecution of the activist, who repeatedly called the activist “an unfinished right-winger” and stated that “we are imprisoning all Banderaites”.