DONETSK. July 9 (Interfax) - The self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) has confirmed the abduction of former militiaman Volodymyr Tsemakh by Ukrainian special services and presumed that Kyiv is planning to use his testimony to falsify evidence in the case concerning the MH17 tragedy over Donbas in 2014.
"We remember how quickly - within only 24 hours after the tragedy - Russia and the Donbas militias were accused of the downing of the passenger plane. Obviously, the absence of clear evidence proving their guilt prompts Ukrainian Security Service officials to commit new crimes: they have unlawfully abducted a DPR citizen, former militiaman Volodymyr Tsemakh, to further falsify the crime picture," DPR head Denis Pushilin said in a statement posted on the DPR's official website.
As the fifth anniversary of the MH17 tragedy draws near, "those interested in concealing the truth about the real perpetrators of the tragedy have been increasingly more active."
Over the nearly five years since the crash, the Joint Investigation Team has not presented evidence incriminating those onto whom the real planners of the "criminal provocation" want to shift the blame, Pushilin said. "The beneficiaries of the cynical provocation involving MH17 won't succeed: with each such step, they'll only acknowledge their own role in this monstrous villainy," he said.
BBC News Russian Service reported on July 4 that Ukrainian special services had detained Volodymyr Tsemakh, a former air defense commander in the town of Snizhne in the DPR, at the end of June. Citing Tsemakh's daughter Maria and lawyer Roman Hontarev, the news service said Tsemakh had been smuggled to a territory controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, from where he was transported to Kyiv, where the Shevchenkivsky District Court ruled on June 29 to arrest him at least for two months.