You're reading: Gang rape, attempted murder outrage Ukraine

An 18-year old woman clings to life as suspects go free in attack.

On the morning of March 10, a resident in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolayiv couldn’t start his car.

He had to hang around waiting for help, and that’s when he heard a moan coming from a nearby construction site.

Within minutes, the police were pulling out from a pit a young woman, whose skin was so scorched she was barely alive.

The day before, 18-year-old Oksana Makar met two young men who invited her to a friend’s house.

Now all three are accused of gang-raping her, trying to choke her to death, then wrapping her into a sheet to take to a construction site, dumping her in the pit and setting her on fire to avoid responsibility.

Unbelievably, Makar survived – but only barely.

Within minutes, the police were pulling out from a pit a young woman, whose skin was so scorched she was barely alive.

Doctors say that 55 percent of her skin is gone, and her kidneys are burned completely.

One arm and two feet had to be amputated soon after she got to the hospital.

The suspects were arrested on the same day. But by the moment Makar went into the surgery room, two of the suspects were already walking free.

Nataliya Abramova, a spokeswoman for Mykolayiv’s prosecutor office, said local officials did not have enough evidence to hold them in detention.

“They were classified as witnesses. The third one is a suspect,” she said.

In the meantime, the victim was not even questioned by the prosecutors, who kept repeating that she is unconscious, despite her mother’s statements that she is awake and talking.

Local media organizations found that the two people released, aged 21 and 23, are sons of local ex-officials. The news of them walking free, despite the gravity of crime they allegedly committed, caused an explosion of public anger.

Their photos and personal details were posted and reposted in social networks, along with threats and angry outcries.

Residents of Mykolayiv protested in the streets, then others joined in Odesa. Symferopol was to follow.

Eugenia Mateichuk, an organizer of protests in Mykolayiv, said people are angry and couldn’t accept that the suspected rapists and murderers would walk free because of family ties.

Ukraine’s chief police officer Vitaly Zakharchenko confirmed that the parents of the suspects used to occupy government jobs.

The wave of anger eventually reached President Viktor Yanukovych, who ordered Ukraine’s General Prosecutor Viktor Pshonka, a close ally, to take personal charge of the case.

The two young men were arrested again on March 13, but the three suspects are only facing attempted murder charges so far.

One of them is a municipal utility company director.

The third man, who is 23, allegedly attempted to suffocate the victim.

A local court ordered to keep the suspects in jail for the period of trial, while the police talked to the victim, whose chances of survival are still slim.

Valentyna Telychenko, a Kyiv lawyer, said those who dragged their feet on questioning the victim, may not even be punished because the law gives them 10 days for emergency investigation procedures.

But releasing those suspected of violent crime is wrong.

“So I think the officer who took that decision may have to bear disciplinary responsibility for his actions,” Telychenko said.

In the meantime, people are demanding information and trying to keep the case in the spotlight.

Apart from names and photos, a video of the interrogation of one of the suspects was leaked on YouTube, where the rape and attempted murder are described in gruesome detail.

The video was viewed 100,000 times in the first day alone.


A video of the interrogation of one of the suspects was leaked on YouTube, where the rape and attempted murder are described in gruesome detail.

Tetyana Surovitska, the victim’s mother, is overwhelmed with grief. She said she keeps photos of her daughter before and after the crime in her cell phone so that she can show people “what she was and what she became!”

“My daughter is only 18. She hasn’t done anything in her life and has already lost everything,” she said. “Now my main aim is to make sure the bastards that hurt her are punished.”

But, unfortunately, in many cases many people get away with the crime if their parents have money and influence.

Roman Landik, the son of a pro-presidential parliamentarian, received a suspended sentence earlier this year after violently beating up a young woman in a restaurant.

Felix Petrosian, the son of an Odesa official, walked free after causing a car accident with 10 other cars that killed a man.

Years ago Serhiy Kalynovsky, the stepson of oligarch Dmytro Firtash, escaped justice after crashing into a parked car and killing a person. The list goes on.

Telychenko said police and judges release well-connected suspects not just because of bribes, but out of fear of their influential relatives.

“Civic activism is the only tool in a situation like this one,” she said.

There is plenty to campaign about. On March 9, a local prosecutor’s father shot two men for not giving way to his car.

One of the victims died. Two days later, in Odesa a drunk driver ran over a pedestrian at a crossing point. He had a regional prosecutor’s license plate number on his car.

Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected].