Oles Buzina


Oles Alekseevich Buzina was a Ukrainian journalist and writer known for his criticism of Ukrainian politics and for the support of closer ties of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.
He was murdered on 16 April 2015, shot on the footpath not far from his flat in Kiev. The murder case has not yet been solved.

Biography

Oles Buzina was born on 13 July 1969 in Kiev and attended local schools. In 1992 he graduated from the Faculty of Philology Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv specialising as a teacher of Russian language and literature. He began a career in journalism working for a number of Ukrainian media outlets:
He was invited as a guest to numerous talk shows in Russia. Some of his articles were published in the Russian media.
As a writer he published eight books, mainly about prominent figures and the history of Ukraine and Russia.

Personal life

Buzina was married and the father of one daughter.

Politics

In addition to his reporting, Buzina tried to enter politics. He ran in the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election for a constituency seat in Kiev for Russian Bloc but failed to win parliamentary representation. In Constituency No. 223, his 8.22% of votes was insufficient.

Political and public views

Oles Buzina held anti-Orange Revolution, and anti-Euromaidan views.
On 20 January 2006 he claimed that as a writer he was aware of political censorship in post-Orange Revolution Ukraine, as some publishers were afraid to release his books.
In May 2009 he campaigned for adoption of a series of laws prohibiting Neo-Nazi organizations, propaganda of Nazism and ideological legacy of Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists as a totalitarian fascist party. This initiative was supported by Borys Kolesnikov, one of the leaders of Party of Regions.
In May 2009 National Expert Commission of Ukraine on the Protection of Public Morality launched an investigation against Oles Buzina as a result of complaint filed by :uk:Кононенко Петро Петрович|Petro Kononenko, director of :uk:Науково-дослідний інститут українознавства МОН України|Institute of Ukrainology. Kononenko stated that Oles Buzina "discredited most outstanding Ukrainian public figures and picks everything that's shameful in our history".
As of April 2009 Buzina was sued 11 times and every single time judges ruled out in his favour. In 2000 he was physically assaulted right after winning in court one of these cases. Some of these legal actions saw Ukrainian politicians as plaintiffs: Pavlo Movchan, Volodymyr Yavorivsky.
activist threw a cake at Oles Buzina, protesting his book in which he defended men's rights.
On 22 March 2009 he had a cake thrown at him by a FEMEN activist who declared his only fiction book sexist.
Oles Buzina was rated 4th in the "Homophobe of the Year - 2011" list by the :uk:Гей-Форум України|Ukrainian gay forum.
He identified himself as both Ukrainian and Russian, though having ethnic Ukrainian parents.
His views on Ukraine expressed on multiple occasions during years of journalism and political commentary included statements that Ukraine should be an independent state, not part of Russia, that it should be a bilingual federation and that it should favour an alliance of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan rather than joining the European Union.
His political stance was criticized for a comment to newspaper Den that he gave in 1999:
He stated that the quote was a fabrication.

Murder

Oles Buzina was found shot on 16 April near his home. Previously, he said on a Russian TV show that he was receiving constant death threats. A previously unknown Ukrainian nationalist group calling itself "Ukrainian Insurgent Army" was reported to claim responsibility for the murders of Buzina and other pro-Russian figures. However, Markian Lubkivskyi, an advisor at the Security Service of Ukraine, said that linguistic analysis of the telephone call indicated they were not native Ukrainian speakers, and head of the Main Investigations Directorate of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Vovk said the organization was fake.
In June Ukrainian authorities arrested three suspects believed to be behind the murder. The head of Ukrainian MIA Arsen Avakov has blamed a Ukrainian nationalist in the murder. All suspects were later released from custody with two being placed under house arrest and one - cleared from all the charges. By April 2017 no progress was made in the murder investigation. On 28 November 2017, the case was forwarded from prosecution office into court, even though on 11 July 2016, it was reported a lot of major evidence, including photo robots of the suspects made by eye witnesses, CCTV footage and cell phone monitoring, has been lost from case materials.

Reactions

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on live Russian TV that this murder was a political one and offered his condolences to the family of the victim. Radio Free Europe reported that "At 2:05, Ukrainian presidential adviser Anton Herashchenko confirmed the slaying on Facebook. And by 2:17, Russian President Vladimir Putin was already using Buzina's killing to attack Ukraine's "democratic" values during his annual call-in show with the Russian public." The German newspaper Die Zeit reported that the murder of opposition activist Buzina followed a string of murders and deaths of five public figures that were pro-Russian and supportive of the former president of Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials blamed "Russian special forces assassins" for the murder.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein described this murder and others as disturbing and demanded quick and decisive investigation.
EU, Germany, United States, UNESCO, OSCE, Amnesty International have demanded an independent investigation of the murder of Ukrainian journalists Oles Buzina and Sergey Sukhobok and politician Oleg Kalashnikov.
On 18 June 2015 Arsen Avakov announced arrest of two alleged killers, Andrey Medvedko and Denis Polischuk. One of the suspects served in the Kyiv-2 Battalion of the Interior Ministry of Ukraine and was C14 оrganisation activist, while the other was platoon officer in the UNSO Battalion; both deny responsibility for the murder.

Publications