KYIV – Authorities detained a decorated prisoner exchange negotiator with alleged ties to U.S.-sanctioned Viktor Medvedchuk on suspicion of preparing crimes and terrorist acts, as well as arms smuggling.
Volodymyr Ruban, 50, was found to have been transporting a sizable arms cache hidden in furniture on March 8 inside a Mercedes Sprinter van at a government-controlled checkpoint north of Russia-occupied Horlivka.
He rejected the accusations, saying he wasn’t aware the furniture contained weapons, the following day at a bail hearing in Kyiv during which he was remanded for two months without bail. In a brief exchange with journalists, he added: “there’s no greater enemy than Medvedchuk… He’s nobody to me… Stop associating me with Mr. Medvedchuk.”
In turn, Mr. Medvedchuk, through his Ukrainian Choice group, denied that the accused has ties to the organization.
“First of all, it must be emphasized that Volodymyr Ruban isn’t and never was a member of the Ukrainian Choice civic movement,” the group said in a March 10 statement.
Himself a key facilitator of prisoner exchanges, Mr. Medvedchuk has asset freezes imposed on him in the U.S. and the European Union for his role in promoting Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The 63-year-old lawyer is a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin and still a pivotal power broker in Ukraine.
The U.S. says that as a leader of Ukrainian Choice, Mr. Medvedchuk was sanctioned for threatening the “peace, security, stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity of Ukraine, and for undermining Ukraine’s democratic institutions and processes.”
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said this was the second instance that Mr. Ruban had smuggled munitions into Ukraine. Authorities say the first arms run took place on November 23, 2017, and that the law enforcement operation lasted nine to 10 months, according to Internal Affairs Ministry communications director Artem Shevchenko.
The latest arsenal included various calibers of mortar rockets and rocket-propelled grenades, an assortment of Kalashnikov automatic rifles, gun-silencer devices, handguns, grenades and other munitions, SBU chief Vasyl Hrytsak said in a March 9 briefing.
He said the arms were to be used to commit “a series of terrorist” acts in Kyiv’s government quarter. At the bail hearing, military prosecutors said the Presidential Administration building was one of the possible targets and plans were in place for a takeover of the Parliament.
Potential assassination targets were President Petro Poroshenko, Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov, National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov and former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
ssu.gov.ua
Pictured are mortar rockets that were part of an arms cache that suspect Volodymyr Ruban was allegedly smuggling into Ukrainian government-controlled territory in the Donbas on March 8.
The overall goal since November, according to military prosecutors, was for Mr. Ruban and his accomplices to cause mayhem in central Kyiv so that Russia had the opportunity to launch a large-scale invasion under the guise of a peacekeeping operation.
Five alleged accomplices were named, including a parliamentary aide to Ukrainian National Deputy Nadiya Savchenko with whom Mr. Ruban had visited the occupied Donbas in the past and whom he unsuccessfully tried to free when she was held captive by occupying authorities.
Ms. Savchenko was called in for questioning on March 13 but was attending a four-day plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, according to pictures she posted on her Facebook page.
Key POW negotiator
Mr. Ruban gained prominence when the Donbas war started in 2014 for his ability to free prisoners on both sides of the conflict. While leading Officer Corps, a group he established, he became an integral part of the prisoner exchange process along with Mr. Medvedchuk.
For example, on November 20, 2015, he facilitated the release of Andriy Hrechanov, who defended the Donetsk Airport as part of a group of soldiers known as Cyborgs. Russian Maj. Volodymyr Starkov was swapped for him.
In July 2014, he is known to have played a role in getting 17 Ukrainian soldiers exchanged for Olga Kulygina – a Russian national who took part in the takeover of Sloviansk under the leadership of Russian officer Igor Girkin.
Mr. Ruban received a merit certificate from the SBU for “carrying out delegated tasks, significant personal contribution to affirming and protecting the national security of Ukraine” and for his “high level of professionalism.”
Russian leaders also praised him.
“Ruban knows the situation from the inside, he engages in a specific matter, he saves people and sees the goal – ending war,” Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov told the ITAR-TASS news agency.
Mr. Ruban would later have permission to visit the occupied Donbas rescinded by the SBU. Yet in February 2017, he traveled to the area together with Ms. Savchenko after she was freed from Russian captivity to “visit Ukrainian servicemen,” occupying authorities reported. Neither had permission to do so.
Ukrainian Choice ties
Cached webpages (that have been deleted) of Mr. Medvedchuk’s Ukrainian Choice show him managing a project on “Ukrainian Federation,” and rejecting European integration in favor of joining the Moscow-led Customs Union in 2013. Mr. Ruban’s Officer Corps also condemned the Euro-Maidan revolution when it first started before joining the movement’s self-defense units in early December 2014.
He last appeared on the website in 2015.
Early life
Mr. Ruban was born in Kazakhstan to a military family. He completed the Chernihiv Military School and achieved the rank of senior lieutenant by the time he was discharged in July 1991. From 1995 he held managerial positions for the Tyutyun tobacco company and entered the publishing business in the 2000s.
Based on the SBU’s Facebook page, the various publishing houses he ran in 2004-2011 published “pro-Russian” books, some of which were meant for children and were distributed in Donetsk.
The books called for the unification of historic “Rus” lands. One book titled, “The Ukrainian Language,” says the “language… was artificially created… to divide the previously united Rus and dismember Little Russia from Greater Russia…”
So-called “sponsors” of the various publishing businesses, according to the SBU, were Georgiy Muradov, a former Soviet and Russian foreign affairs official and current permanent presidential representative in annexed Crimea. Another backer, the SBU alleges, is Aleksander Drozdov, a former KGB officer and current head of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center foundation.