You're reading: Activist Dmytro Bulatov gives gruesome details of his kidnapping (VIDEO)

EuroMaidan activist Dmytro Bulatov says he does not understand why his kidnappers did not kill him.

“It’s hard for me to make conclusions, but I don’t understand why they did not kill me. They even threw me out in a way that I could walk to people, i.e. they threw me out close to people,” he said.

Speaking from a hospital bed to Wall Street Jornal’s Alan Cullison on Feb. 1, Bulatov gave some gruesome details about the eight days he spent in captivity. He said he was fed bad meat at some point, and left hungry in the past couple of days before his release by his captors on Jan. 30, in a Kyiv suburb.

“To me, it says they did not want me to die. If they wanted me to die in this frost, they could have thrown me out in the field and I would freeze there, but they threw me out close to people,” he says.

Bulatov was flown out of Ukraine to Vilnius, Lithuania, on the night of Feb. 2, to receive treatment for his injuries and escape criminal charges. Police said on Feb. 2 that he remains under investigation for organizing mass protests.

Bulatov was one of the leaders of AutoMaidan, an offshoot of EuroMaidan that took protests and pickets to Ukrainian officials’ homes. AutoMaidan also acted as a mobile, rapid reaction force to combat government-hired thugs, titushki, and patrol the streets to prevent violent outbreaks.

The Interior Ministry put Bulatov on its wanted list the day after he was found, and made at least two attempts to arrest the activist in the hospital. In a separate case, the police are investigating Bulatov’s disappearance and are treating it as a high-profile case, according to a city police spokeswoman.

Petro
Poroshenko, one of the opposition leaders, said Bulatov’s evacuation
to Vilnius was assisted by high-ranking western officials, including
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, EU Commissioner Stefan Fuele and a
number of European foreign ministers.

“This
is our common victory, thank you all,” he said on his Facebook page
on Feb. 3

Bulatov said that his abductors assumed he was an American spy, and asked many questions about his connection to the U.S. government.

“They asked why I talked to the American ambassador, they thought I was an American spy. They asked me where is the money I was given by the American ambassador, who gives me orders, they asked me whether I am an agent of American intelligence,” he said.

“They asked me how we have things organized, who I pay and how much money, why the American ambassador gives me money – this is what they asked, and much else.”

Bulatov also said that eight days in captivity were taking a toll on him, and at some point he begged his prisoners to kill him.

“I was begging them to kill me because I could no longer bear it for days. They beat me up behind on the soft tissue… they say there are bruises there,” he said, showing the bruises.

“They beat me up so that I’d stop twitching, but I kept twitching… It was very painful and scary. I had my eyes closed, and I was asking them to kill me, but they would not kill me. I could no longer bear it. I don’t understand why they did not kill me.”

Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara dismissed the claims of Bulatov’s abduction, and said he was in a fine physical condition, with “just a scratch” on his cheek.

But former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko told TVi channel that he knew who was behind the kidnapping of Bulatov and two more activists, Yuriy Lytsenko and Yuriy Verbytskiy, who were abducted in the same style and dumped in the same area outside of Kyiv. Verbytskiy, who was beaten more severely than others, froze to death.

Lutsenko said that the gang of kidnappers has links to the city police, but the interior ministry denied all accusations. Bulatov himself cannot provide many details about the people because he had a bag on his head a lot of the time.

“I was kidnapped, pushed into a minibus, I was beaten on the head, they put a bag on (my head), and took me somewhere. They brought me to some sort of building, but i could not see because I had a bag on my head. All the time it was dark,” he said.

“Then they put on swimming goggles with cotton wool in them, and told me that if I took them off, they were going to beat me,” Bulatov said. “They beat me on the head every day.”