Turning the pages back...

December 31, 1997

In the last issue of 1977, The Ukrainian Weekly reported on the arrests of two members of the Kyiv-based Ukrainian Public Group to Promote the Implementation of the Helsinki Accords: Lev Lukianenko and Petro Vins.

Mr. Lukianenko was arrested by the KGB in his home in Chernihiv on December 12, 1977, reported the Ukrainian Central Information Service. His arrest came some 19 months after he was released from a 15-year prison sentence for belonging to a group of Ukrainian lawyers who were tried in 1961 for calling for the session of the Ukrainian SSR from the USSR.

Lukianenko's arrest raised to six the number of Ukrainian Helsinki monitors to be arrested since the group's formation in November 1976. Others arrested earlier were Mykola Rudenko, Oleksiy Tykhy, Mykola Matusevych, Myroslav Marynovych and Oles Berdnyk. Observers reported that dissident circles in Ukraine believed this latest attack on the Kyiv group was a major KGB attempt to destroy all Ukrainian Helsinki monitors.

On December 8, 1977, the secret police ransacked the quarters of Petro Vins, son of incarcerated Baptist Pastor Georgi Vins, reported the Smoloskyp Information Service. The younger Vins was reportedly beaten during the search and detained for 15 days.

Source: "Lukianenko, Vins arrested," The Ukrainian Weekly, December 31, 1977.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 28, 2003, No. 52, Vol. LXXI

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