MOSCOW, September 9 /TASS/. Ukrainian politicians remembered psychiatrists when they learnt about the Ukrainian prime minister’s military past in Chechnya in the mid-1990s.
Vladimir Markin, the Russian Investigation Committee spokesperson, has described their reaction as symptomatic.
"A man with lice can only talk about a bath house. The culprit’s thoughts are turning to his psychiatrists but this fake excuse is unlikely to move the tribunal to pity," Markin wrote in Twitter commenting on insulting remarks made by Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov (Russia has put Avakov on a wanted list for war crimes in south-eastern Ukraine) in response to Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the Russian Investigation Committee, who had told Rossiyskaya Gazeta about Yatsenyuk’s participation in the combat operations in Chechnya in 1994-1995.
In an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily published on September 9, Bastrykin said investigators had proof that Yatsenyuk had fought against Russian servicemen (in Chechnya) in the mid-1990s along with members of the UNA-UNSO (Ukrainian National Assembly — Ukrainian People’s Self-Defense) movement first as a member of the Argo punitive battalion and later the Viking battalion under the command of Alexander Muzychko.
"According to investigators, Arseniy Yatsenyuk took part at least in two armed clashes in the Chechen capital of Grozny: on Minutka Square on December 31, 1994 and near hospital No.9 in February 1995. He also tortured and executed captivated Russian servicemen in the Oktyabrsky district of Grozny on January 7, 1995," Bastrykin said.
According to him, Yatsenyuk and other active UNA-UNSO members received the Honor of Nation award instituted by late Chechen rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev for destruction of Russian soldiers.
Bastrykin added that some of Yatsenyuk’s associates had described him as being smart and educated but at the same time cunning and slippery — a person who has sought power and publicity since young age.
Yatsenyuk returned to Ukraine from Chechnya via Georgia together with a group of journalists early in 1995. He was seen attending UNA-UNSO congresses and meetings in Kiev in the following years.