From "lieutenant colonel of the MGB of the DNR" to an agent of the GRU and the FSB: how Shepelev, accused of state council and contract killings, helped terrorist groups

Former MP Oleksandr Shepelev, who became known throughout the country for a series of contract killings and involvement in financial crimes, turned out to be not only a supporter of the terrorist quasi-republics of the DPR and LPR, but also actively worked for their development. As it became known from the documents and videos available to UNN, Shepelev was a recruited agent of the Russian special services, which once again confirms the accusation of treason.

Details

After Shepelev became a suspect in the case of embezzlement of $40 million from Rodovid Bank, and it became known about his involvement in a number of contract killings and an attempted murder of banker Serhiy Dyadechko, he fled Ukraine for Russia. He was put on the Interpol wanted list. Later, he traveled to Hungary, where he was detained and extradited to Ukraine by Budapest. Then a Ukrainian court arrested the former MP.

However, Shepelev bribed the staff of the Lukianivska pre-trial detention center to transfer him to a hospital, from where he then escaped.

Later, a court in Kyiv sentenced him to 7 years in prison in a case of bribery and escape from custody. However, Supreme Court judges Vyacheslav Marynych, Volodymyr Korol and Alla Makarovets decided to change the verdict of the first instance and appellate courts, committing gross violations of the law.

After law enforcement officers managed to lure Shepelev out of Russia and detain him in Ukraine, the truth about his cooperation with Russian special services was revealed. During the detention in Koncha Zaspa near Kyiv, the former MP's documents included a service certificate of a lieutenant colonel of the terrorist MGB of the DPR. It was issued in the name of Volodymyr Borukh, but the photo was of Oleksandr Shepelev.

Vladimir Borukh, whose "double" Shepelev became, was not just a real person, he was included in the general list of militants and Russian mercenaries of the Myrotvorets website who participated in the war against Ukraine in the summer of 2014. That is, the FSB and GRU curators gave their agent Shepelev the documents of a real terrorist.

Initially, in 2014, Borukh was considered a trainee of the terrorist "MGB DNR". However, three years later, based on the certificate found in Shepelev's possession, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. What state secrets agent Shepelev, who worked in the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance and Banking, was a member of the privatization commission and had close trusting relations with the country's leadership and enemy special services, told to get another rank of MGB of the DPR , is anyone's guess.

The fate of the real terrorist Borukh is also unknown. Shepelev did not just work for terrorist republics unrecognized by the civilized world, he supports their ideology and considers them his homeland.

"The Black Sea is already Russia. I always liked to go to Crimea, we go to the Carpathians, and to central, eastern and western Ukraine. Donbas is my homeland, my parents are buried there. But I would like to put things in order there. First of all, it is clear that it is not realistic to give it (Ukraine - ed.) to NATO troops, to have NATO ships in the Black Sea, and I think the Americans and everyone else understands this perfectly well," Shepelev said in a conversation with a representative of the Russian special services.

However, the evidence of his betrayal of Ukraine does not end there. As it became known from the documents available to UNN, Shepelev considers the DNR his home. In particular, in an explanatory note to the FSB director, where he describes in detail his agent activities and cooperation with the FSB and the game, the former MP indicates the "Donetsk People's Republic" as his place of residence.

In an appeal to the head of the federal migration service, where he requests to be granted political asylum in the Russian Federation, Shepelev indicates his place of residence as "dpr, Donetsk, Komsomolsky avenue, 17 / apartment 2". He also indicates the same address in a similar appeal to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation. To recap Earlier it became known that prosecutor Victoria Orshavska filed a complaint with the HCJ against Supreme Court judges Korol V.V., Marynych V.K. and Markovets A.M., who considered the cassation in Shepelev's case, and on July 6, 2023, changed the verdict of the courts of previous instances and almost released Shepelev.  

According to the automatic distribution, the appeal in Shepelev's case will be considered by the first ever HCJ member judge who fights on the front against Russia, Olena Kovbiy. In particular, the Supreme Court panel decided to close one of the episodes of the case, which concerned bribery, due to insufficient evidence. In addition, the judges significantly reduced Shepelev's sentence by crediting him with the period of stay in the Russian pre-trial detention center from March 19, 2015 to July 8, 2016. At that time, Russian law enforcement officers detained him following an extradition request from Ukraine. While the issue of his extradition to Ukraine was allegedly being resolved, Shepelev actively cooperated with the Russian Federal Security Service and was supposed to be held in a pre-trial detention center. A year later, Russia still refused to extradite the fugitive MP to Ukrainian justice, citing threats to its own national security. The Supreme Court panel also took advantage of the Savchenko Law and counted Shepeleva's stay in the pre-trial detention center on charges in other cases as part of his sentence. Thus, according to the decision of the cassation instance, Shepelev has fully served his sentence under the verdict of the Desnianskyi District Court of Kyiv of August 7, 2020. In addition, due to the closure of the bribery cases, the former MP's property will not be confiscated. Experts interviewed by UNN had previously questioned the objectivity of the Supreme Court's decision, speaking frankly about the corruption component. In particular, according to Mykhailo Zhernakov, Chairman of the Board of the DEJURE Foundation, the Supreme Court judges could have received a monetary reward for this decision.

Political analyst Oleksandr Kochetkov believes that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) should check the integrity of the judgeswho made such a decision in Shepelev's case.