From MP to Russian agent: how Shepelev, accused of contract killings, confessed to the FSB director

Former MP Oleksandr Shepelev, who is accused of high treason, contract killings and other financial and corruption crimes, worked closely with Russian special services at a time when conscious Ukrainians were defending their European integration aspirations and beginning to fight for Ukraine's territorial integrity. This is evidenced by documents available to the editorial board of UNN . 

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Shepelev was ready for any cooperation with the enemy, regularly fulfilled the tasks of FSB curators and the game with pleasure and dreamed of working for the benefit of Russia in the future. In particular, in an explanatory note to FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov, written by Shepelev with his own hand, he states that he voluntarily cooperated with the FSB and the GRU and emphasizes his sincerity in fulfilling the tasks of the special services.

In the document, the former member of the Ukrainian parliament talks about active cooperation with the Russian special services and strictly following all their instructions.

Shepelev tells the FSB director how he was recruited by the game's employees. He recalls how he was trained to pass interviews and tests.

"From our first meeting in May 2013 in Hungary with Gor Khechoyan and Roman Bakharchiev, whom my friend Emelyan Zakharov introduced to me and brought to Budapest and said that these people are Russian GRU officers, very serious people, and if I can convince them and make them interested in my story and the secret service is interested in me, they will bring me and my family to Russia and facilitate legalization and state protection (will give - ed. ) and I will be able to live in peace and do business and work for the benefit of Russia, help the special services," Shepelev wrote.

In an explanatory note to the director of the FSB, the former MP also says that after passing the checks, he is to become an employee of the "office", as the intelligence agencies - the FSB and the GRU - are called in law enforcement circles.

"I followed all the instructions, I was worried about failing somewhere, so I strictly followed all the instructions, promises, agreements, rules," Shepelev admits.

As an example, he cited a successful FSB operation in which he participated to detain another career officer of the special service, Yuri Ilyin. It is noteworthy that in his appeal to the FSB chief, Shepelev stated that he was a citizen of Ukraine and Canada, and that his place of residence was in the DPR.

In addition, UNN has an appeal signed by Shepelev to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation and the head of the Federal Migration Service (FMS) of Russia with a request to grant him political asylum in Russia, in which his place of residence is also indicated as the DPR.

In the explanation to the appeal to the head of the Federal Migration Service, Shepelev claims that he is being persecuted in Ukraine for supporting former fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych, and that the authorities allegedly want to obtain information from him to destroy their political rivals. Shepelev emphasizes that during his work in the Verkhovna Rada, in particular in the parliamentary committee on banking, financial, tax and customs policy and in the special commission on privatization, he had close ties with the political elite. "I have a large amount of political and commercial information," Shepelev emphasized, explaining his value. "I ask you to consider the possibility of recognizing me as a refugee in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation... so that I can live and work in peace in the Russian Federation and for the benefit of the Russian Federation," Shepelev pleaded.AddendumEarlier UNN reported 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.   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 a 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. As a reminder, in 2014, Shepelev was detained in the case of the murder of four people and the attempted murder of banker Serhiy Dyadechko. However, the former MP managed to escape from custody through a "hospital scheme". For four years, he was hiding in Russia and was detained by Ukrainian law enforcement only in 2018. In addition to the case of ordering the murders of five people, Ukrainian courts are also considering cases on charges of high treason and embezzlement of Rodovid Bank funds.