Arrest of the head of the Donetsk Regional Council

6 April 2004, Kyiv.

A plot about the arrest of Donetsk Regional Council Chairman Boris Kolesnikov for separatism. The Prosecutor General's Office, journalists outside the Prosecutor General's Office, comments, Nestor Shufrich present; representatives of the Berkut special forces.

Comments: Head of the Donetsk Regional Council Press Service Olena Bondarenko; representative of the Regions of Ukraine faction Oleksandr Peklushenko; People's Deputy Leonid Grach; politician and lawyer Olena Lukash; Viktor Yanukovych; former Prosecutor General of Ukraine Hennadiy Vasyliev; representative of Our Ukraine Volodymyr Filenko.

Background: In April 2005, the head of the Donetsk Regional Council, Boris Kolesnikov, was detained in Kyiv on suspicion of abuse of power and extortion of shares in the Donetsk shopping centre ‘White Swan’—in particular, with threats of violence. A case was also brought against him for separatism, but it remained under investigation.

Kolesnikov was a confidant of Viktor Yanukovych: from the end of 2003, he headed the Donetsk regional branch of the Party of Regions, actively supported Yanukovych during the Orange Revolution, and organised the ‘eastern congress’ in Severodonetsk.