He’s most famous for serving as the self-proclaimed mayor of the Russian occupied city of Horlivka. But a sensational news report now claims that Eduard Matiukha was, in fact, never a supporter of the Russian-backed militants who seized partial control of Ukraine’s Donbas region in 2014.
Rather, he was an undercover Ukrainian intelligence operative handing valuable intelligence over to the Ukrainian special services, TSN news program on TV channel 1+1 reported late on Nov. 24. And his work allegedly sheds light on Russia’s plans for Donbas.
Before late 2013, Matiukha was known as the first deputy mayor of Horlivka, a city of nearly 250,000 in Donetsk Oblast, some 30 kilometers northeast of Donetsk. During the outbreak of Russian-sponsored mutinies in the region’s cities in May 2014, Matiukha became the “people’s mayor” of the city, supported by the Russian-backed militants who were seizing Horlivka.
Matiukha’s tenure was brief — just a few days — but it reportedly caused a serious conflict among numerous militant formations in the area. This eventually led militant warlord Igor Girkin to abandon the city of Slovyansk to Ukrainian forces and leave for Donetsk, TSN claimed. It is unclear exactly what role Matiukha played in this.
After leaving his self-proclaimed office, Matiukha became the first secretary of the Communist Party branch in occupied Horlivka, where he had close ties with Russia’s Communist Party. In this capacity, he witnessed the party help curate the Kremlin’s policies in the occupied territories.
A screenshot from TSN news program footage showing Eduard Matiukha being interviewed after alleged evacuation from occupied Donbas. (Kyiv Post)
Mission accomplished?
In an interview with channel 1+1 in Kyiv, Matiukha claimed to be an operative of Ukraine’s Chief Intelligence Directorate, the principal military intelligence agency subordinate to the country’s Defense Ministry. He said he spent the past five years in the occupied territories pretending to be an active supporter of the militants , simultaneously conveying information to the Ukrainian military.
According to Matiukha, the conflict between militant formations that erupted following his appointment as “mayor” was actually a Ukrainian intelligence mission he successfully carried out.
Moreover, his own family was not aware of his secret work. Frustrated by his pro-Russian activities, Matiukha’s wife left for Kyiv five years ago, according to TSN.
Myrotvorets, a controversial database of persons allegedly posing threats to Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty, identifies Matiukha as “the occupants’ henchman.” But, according to the TSN report, Matiukha was also involved in the very creation of the database in 2014.
Eventually, Ukrainian intelligence agents evacuated Matiukha from the occupied zone.
Vadym Skibitskiy, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Chief Intelligence Directorate, confirmed Matiukha’s claims on camera.
“Indeed, Eduard is a person who provided a lot of information necessary for the Chief Intelligence Directorate to have a realistic understanding of the situation in the occupied territories,” the official told TSN.
Matiukha’s work also reveals the role of the Communist Party in Russia’s aggression against its neighbors. As a senior party functionary, Matiukha was regularly in contact with the Russian party. According to him, it plays a leading role in supporting the militants in Donbas, as well as the unrecognized governments of other Russian-occupied territories: Transnistria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Matiukha claimed that he used to coordinate so-called “humanitarian convoys” from Russia to occupied Donbas in cooperation with Russian lawmaker Kazbek Taisaiev and other Communist Party politicians. The trucks, which supposedly transported humanitarian aid, also brought cash into Donbas to pay the militants, he said.
The former “mayor” also said that Russia had a backup plan for Donbas in case Ukraine refused to make political concessions to the Kremlin: to organize another “referendum” in the region on joining the Russian Federation.
Another option was resurrecting the “Novorossiya” (New Russia) project of creating a breakaway pro-Kremlin statelet in Ukraine’s southeast, he said. That plan was largely forgotten after attempts to incite predominantly Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine to secede from the country failed outside the Donbas in 2014.
“This is about a military operation to seize Kharkiv and Odesa oblasts, as well as the creation of a land bridge between Russia and Crimea,” Matiukha told TSN.
Questions remain
As gripping as the TSN report may be, Matiukha’s spy thriller-like story has also been met with skepticism.
Denys Kazansky, a journalist and popular blogger originally from Donetsk, wrote on Facebook that he doubts the story presented by Ukrainian officials.
“Most probably, (Matiukha) at some point simply decided to defect and actually give some useful evidence,” the journalist wrote, “not because he was an intelligence operative but because of some inner motives. Maybe because he got sick of living in (occupied Donbas).
“But that’s just my assumption.”
