Lukianenko, Vins arrested (12/31/77)

Lukianenko, Vins arrested

TORONTO, Ont. - Lev Lukianenko, a member of the Kiev Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords, was arrested by the KGB in his home in Chernihiv Monday, December 12, reported the Ukrainian Central Information Service here.

Lukianenko's arrest came some 19 months after he was released from a 15-year prison sentence for belonging to the so-called "jurists", a group of Ukrainian lawyers who were tried in 1961 for calling for the session of the Ukrainian SSR from the USSR.

In a story filed in from Moscow by Craig Whitney of The New York Times, published in the newspaper Saturday, December 24, about the arrest, Oksana Meshko, a member of the group, was quoted as saying: "The situation for us in Ukraine is critical."

The information service reported that the secret police conducted a 16-hour search of Lukianenko's apartment from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. before arresting him.

Lukianenko's arrest raises to six the number of Ukrainian Helsinki monitors to be arrested since the group's formation late in 1976. Others arrested include Mykola Rudenko, group leader, Oleksiy Tykhy, Mykola Matusevych, Myroslav Marynovych, and Oles Berdnyk.

At the time of Lukianenko's arrest, the KGB also searched the apartments of his brother and his 1961 co-defendant, Ivan Kandyba. Kandyba, who lives in Pustomyty, a village on the outskirts of Lviv, was also released from imprisonment with Lukianenko in the spring of 1976.

As reported earlier, Berdnyk was arrested Monday, December 12. The apartment of Rudenko's wife, Raisa, was searched the same day.

On Thursday, December 8, the secret police ransacked the quarters of Petro Vins, Georgi Vins' son. The younger Vins, who is a member of the Kiev group, was reportedly beaten during the search and detained for 15 days.

The information service said that dissident circles in Ukraine feel that this latest attack on the Kiev group is a major KGB attempt to destroy all Ukrainian Helsinki monitors.

HELSINKI, Finland - Petro Vins, son of the incarcerated Baptist pastor Georgi, who earlier last year had joined the Kiev based Ukrainian Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords, was arrested last week by the KGB in Kiev, reported the "Smoloskyp" Ukrainian Information Service.

Immediately following his arrest, says the service, Vins was taken out of Kiev, his whereabouts unknown. He is reportedly on a hunger strike and is being fed forcibly, because the authorities fear that he may die during the interrogation.

The arrest of Vins, who had joined the Kiev group after the arrests of Mykola Rudenko and Oleksa Tykhy, follows similar detention of Levko Lukianenko, another member of the Kiev group. There were unconfirmed reports last week that Oles Berdnyk, the successor of Rudenko as head of the group, was also arrested while other members are being harassed by the KGB. This appears to confirm the fears among dissidents that the Soviet authorities are bent on completely destroying the Kiev monitoring group.

At the same time, reports the service, the KGB resumed harassment tactics against Nadia Svitlychna.

Attempts to contact by telephone individuals in Ukraine over the period from December 24th through the 26th were unsuccessful, said the service.

Efforts to contact dissident sources in Moscow were also unsuccessful. The operators there replied to queries that these persons do not wish to speak with anyone from abroad.

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