Ukrainian extreme adventurer and risk-taker Grygoriy, who goes under pseudonym Mustang Wanted, is claming that he put the Ukrainian flag on top of a building in Moscow on Aug. 20. He also gave a yellow star on top of the building a coat of blue paint as a finishing touch of Ukrainian colors.
Grygoriy, 26, says it was “a sincere patriotic feeling” that made him do it.
Read Grygoriy’s profile by Kyiv Post from June 2013.
In a statement he put on his Facebook page, Grygoriy, who never shares his last name, says he decided to come clear for the sake of the four Russians who were detained on suspicion of putting up the flag.
“I have to make this confession in attempt to free the innocent citizens of Russia who have all the chances to become victims of Russian justice, widely known for its impartiality,” reads the post on Mustang Wanted page on Facebook.
At 7 a.m. on Aug. 20, a Ukrainian flag was spotted on a top of the apartment building known as Kotelnicheskaya Embankment Building, a trademark Stalinist skyscraper. Half of a yellow Soviet star under the flag was painted blue to resemble the colors of the flag.
The flag was removed three hours later, and the star was repainted the same day. Later in the day, four young Russians, two men and two women were detained as suspects. The judge qualified the case as hooliganism, punished by up to seven years of prison.
The suspects were seen making parachute jumps from the building that morning, but claimed it was a coincidence and said they never saw who put up the flag.
In his confession post, Grygoriy writes he spent most of the night painting the star and installing the flag, and was done by 6 a.m.
“I never saw the detained Russians there and I must say I don’t even know them,” he writes.
Grygoriy is known for his passion for climbing high buildings. He is often photographed hanging from 100-meter high buildings on one hand and making other stunts.
After confessing, he wrote that he agrees to put himself in the hands of Russian justice in exchange of Nadezhda Savchenko’s liberation. Savchenko, a Ukrainian military pilot, was taken captive by Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine’s east in June and has been kept in prison in Russian city of Voronezh ever since.
Kyiv Post editor Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected]
