"Do you know how we differ from Gestapo? Only by name": Ukrainian Volodymyr Teteriev recounts how FSB fabricated case that could get him life sentence
The Southern District Military Court will deliver its verdict today in the case over the killing of Ivan Sushko, head of the occupation administration of the village of Mykhailivka in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
Mediazona publishes Volodymyr Teteriev’s statement during closing arguments in court
His car was blown up on 23 August 2022, and the collaborator died in hospital the following day. Russian security officials claim that Sushko’s adopted daughter was inside the car at the time of the explosion; the girl survived. The prosecutor has requested life imprisonment for all five defendants: 35-year-old Oleksii Kyrychenko, 24-year-old Oleksandr Liakhovchenko, 36-year-old Dmytro Novikov, 22-year-old Danylo Smola, and 50-year-old Volodymyr Teteriev. They are charged with an act of international terrorism involving the use of explosives.
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Illustration: Danny Berkovskii / Mediazona
"Now I will describe how all of this really happened. I was born and lived in Ukraine, worked the land, grew grain, and was a respected citizen."
Former police officer Volodymyr Teteriev inherited his father’s business in October 2021: an agricultural enterprise that cultivated 160 hectares of land and produced 1,600 tonnes of grain and 600-700 tonnes of sunflower seeds per season. In addition to Volodymyr, five other people worked on the farm, including his mother and stepson. "The working day began at 7 a.m. and lasted until 5 p.m., and when fieldwork was under way, the working day shifted from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m."
To transport grain, Teteriev sometimes hired his cousin, Hennadii Kizilov.
According to investigators, Kizilov was involved in organising the bombing, but Teteriev believes he was falsely implicated by another defendant, Dmytro Novikov. "Perhaps they know each other: Kizilov delivered fertilisers to the company where Novikov worked as a loader. They may have had some conflicts because Novikov had a previous conviction, while Kizilov was a former law enforcement officer."
In March 2022, Russian troops occupied Kizilov’s empty house in Mykhailivka, while he and his family left for Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.
Teteriev’s neighbour, Ruslan Shchus, had been deputy head of the Mykhailivka settlement administration before Russia’s invasion. "We maintained neighbourly relations: hello, hello, goodbye, goodbye, because we held different positions in society and had no common interests or acquaintances." In spring and autumn, Shchus hired Teteriev to tend his orchard, vegetable garden, and vineyard. In April 2022, Shchus and his family left Mykhailivka. "The military of the Russian Federation was looking for him, allegedly for distributing small arms and taking part in some Territorial Defense Forces unit. That rumour was going around the village."
In May, Russian troops also moved into Shchus’s house. "From around mid-July, neighbours began saying that Shchus was already in the city of Zaporizhzhia [which remained] under Ukraine’s control. From the conversations, it was clear that he and his family had left through the Vasylivka checkpoint; the checkpoint operated until the end of November 2022."
Like Kizilov, investigators consider Shchus a participant in the conspiracy against Sushko. Teteriev was forced to testify that, after the bombing, he had called his former neighbour to report back.
When the Russians occupied Mykhailivka, Teteriev’s family agricultural business did not stop operating. "From around the beginning of April 2022, I visited the Mykhailivka military-civilian administration, which had begun operating and whose head was appointed to be citizen Sushko, whom I had not known before that point. While Sushko was still alive, we gathered in the building for meetings on spring fieldwork. We were told that before going out to work in the fields, we had to obtain permits from the commandant’s office and coordinate them with the military directly in the village."
In May 2022, "a video surveillance system was installed on the military-civilian administration building," and the parking area where Sushko’s car was parked was also in the camera’s field of view. The former village council building was constantly guarded by Russian troops.
Abduction
"On 23 August 2023, I was at home in the village of Tymoshivka, where I fell asleep after taking medication for a heart condition. At around 12:30, I was woken by several blows to the head. As I was getting up from the sofa, I was hit in the liver area and collapsed. When I raised my head, I saw four people in civilian clothes and balaclavas in front of me. I do not know how they got into the property. Two of them were aiming pistols at me. Without explaining anything or identifying themselves, they snapped handcuffs onto my wrists. Then came the question: ‘Who else is at home?’ I answered that my mother was there, she was at home."
Teteriev was taken into the yard and forced to squat. Two security officers stayed with him, while the others woke his mother, searched the house, and said they needed to go to Mykhailivka, where Teteriev had a second home.
Remembering that there were two checkpoints between Tymoshivka and Mykhailivka, Volodymyr thought he would need his passport on the way back. He asked the security officers for permission to take his documents and money from the glove compartment of his car, but was surprised to find that they were no longer there. "I took only a blister pack of heart medication and a pack of cigarettes. I want to clarify that I never saw my Russian passport or driver’s licence again and do not know where they are."
"Then I was put into one of two cars, and we headed to Mykhailivka. When we arrived, I explained that there was an unleashed German shepherd inside. I was taken out of the car so I could catch the dog and tie it up. After I did that, I went into the garage and handed the key to the property to [the security officers]. At that moment, one of the officers standing behind me racked the slide of his pistol, three of them made me squat in the corner of the garage and told me to lower my head, while three or four others went to search the property."
Teteriev is a hunter and owns three registered hunting shotguns. The security officers took them from the safe without drawing up any paperwork. "Perhaps the weapons have already been sold and could be used in criminal activity on the territory of the Russian Federation. I would not want to be held responsible for that."
"Then they returned the house keys to me, I put them back in place, untied the dog, and they put me in the car, placed a bag over my head, and we headed south. Judging by the speed of travel, we arrived in the city of Melitopol at around 2 p.m. Along the way, they told me to confess to some crime. ‘I want to note that I am a law-abiding citizen.’ To that, they replied that everyone confesses here, and I was no exception."
"Do not worry, we know how to resuscitate people." The first interrogation
"Upon arrival, I was taken into some room. During a conversation between the people who had abducted me, someone asked: ‘Has he confessed?’ The answer was: ‘No.’ After that, I was hit in the head and fell to the floor with my hands cuffed behind my back and a bag over my head. Then, as I lay there, they simply began kicking me. One of them said: ‘Do you know how we differ from the Gestapo? Only by name.’ They did not ask me anything, and when they stopped beating me, they asked whether I had remembered. I do not understand what I was supposed to remember. After that, they tied my legs with tape and continued beating me. I lost consciousness several times; they brought me round by pouring water over me and kept asking whether I had remembered.
I replied that I had nothing to remember. After that, they connected a field telephone (ТА-57 - ed.), or, as they called it, the ‘electric train’. I said I had a heart condition. They said: ‘Do not worry, we know how to resuscitate people.’ They began giving me electric shocks and beating me with some kind of hose, with tape or rubber wrapped around the end in the shape of a ball, without asking any questions.
Then came the ‘calls to Lenin in Smolny’: they attached wires to intimate parts of my body and began applying electric shocks, while also beating me with a baton. I do not know how many times I lost consciousness. When I asked what they wanted from me, the answer I received was whether I knew who had been blown up in Mykhailivka in 2022. I replied that Sushko had been blown up on Ostrovsky Street. Before lunch, I had been in Mykhailivka and had seen the blown-up car. By that point, I already knew that it was Sushko who had been blown up. They told me I was on the right track.
Then they began naming people to me: Smola, Novikov, Liakhovchenko, Kyrychenko. I replied that I did not know any of them. In response, I was told that they knew me. I explained that I knew Serhii Novikov, a resident of the city of Mykhailivka who was also a farmer. They replied: ‘That is not the one. We are interested in Dmytro Novikov, nicknamed Tsyhan.’ I answered that I did not know him and had never met him, to which they told me that he allegedly knew me.
They were not satisfied with that answer, and as a result, they brought in a second field telephone. They attached wires to my ears and, without removing the first one from the intimate parts of my body, continued ‘calling Beria’. I lost consciousness several times, and they brought me round. I do not know how long it lasted. I had the impression that these people, if they can be called people, took pleasure in the torture and beatings, like sadists.
When they brought me round once again, they asked whether I knew Hennadii Kizilov from Mykhailivka, the one who limps. I replied: ‘Yes, he is my cousin.’ In response, I heard: ‘One hundred percent, it is him.’ I do not understand what that meant.
They then continued torturing me with electric shocks and beating me, periodically bringing me round. I asked what they wanted from me and was told to explain how Sushko had been blown up, that they already knew everything. I replied that I had nothing to do with Sushko’s bombing, that I did not know who had carried it out, that I had not known Sushko before he became head of the military-civilian administration, and that I did not know where he lived. I also said where I had been at the time of the bombing and who could confirm it. To that, I received the answer: "We are not interested in that. No one is going to check it. The question is how much health I will lose, but I will sign it anyway." After that, they continued shocking me with two field telephones and beating me with batons.
After another loss of consciousness and after I was brought round, I found blood in my mouth and discovered that one tooth, two crowns, and one pin were missing. Judging by the voices, there were two or three people there who had taken me from my home.
After that, they asked me whether I knew Ruslan Shchus and where he was now. I answered that he was my neighbour and had been in the city of Zaporizhzhia since June 2022, if one believed what people who had seen him there were saying. They asked what kind of relationship I had with him. I replied that we had not maintained close relations and that I had tended his vegetable garden. After that, they continued shocking and beating me.
At that moment, they began threatening me with execution, racking the pistol slide and pressing the gun to my head. I told them: "Shoot, I do not care." They said, "No one will ever find out where your body is, and nothing will happen to us for it," after which they continued beating me. I do not know and cannot say how long this lasted, because I lost consciousness repeatedly.
After that, one of them said, "I am fed up with all this. We need to bring in his mother and torture her to death until he signs everything for us." I told them: "What kind of officers are you? You have no conscience," after which they began beating me again. At that moment, I perceived and felt those threats as real and asked: "What do you want from me?" "To confess to Sushko’s murder."
Because of the constant torture and beatings, I agreed that I had blown up Sushko and said: "Give me the papers, I will sign everything, just leave my elderly, sick mother alone." To that, I was told that, as a former operative, I had to come up with everything myself, while they would only make corrections.
These corrections continued for about an hour and a half to two hours, with the use of electric shocks and beatings. As they said, it was so that I would remember it better. They continued until I remembered that I had some other accomplices: Smola, Liakhovchenko, Novikov, and Kyrychenko. I did not know at that point what role they had assigned to me, but I was presented with the fact that I had to give the following testimony: how, under a surveillance camera in the military-civilian administration, which was guarded by soldiers of the Russian army, I allegedly mined Sushko’s car at around 12:00-3:00 p.m. on 23 August 2022, then blew it up the next day on Ostrovsky Street, threw the remote control from a bridge into a canal and walked through Mykhailivka (although at that moment I was actually at work, 15 kilometres from the explosion), and how, after the bombing, I called Ruslan Shchus to report back. With the help of the officers, this story was rehearsed another three or four times until they were satisfied with everything. Then I recounted the entire story from beginning to end on a mobile phone camera.
The investigation
"At around three in the morning, I was taken to some room about 30 steps from the place where they had tortured me and was given five litres of water. For about five days, no one came to see me, and I was not given food. When I woke up the next morning, I found that my entire body was covered in a solid purple hematoma, my eyesight had sharply deteriorated, and there was blood in my urine. On the fifth evening, they brought me a flask of water, gave me scraps and a field ration, and explained that this was for three days.
Around 4 or 5 September, two civilians came to me and demanded that I put a bag over my head and stand by the wall. They ordered me to stretch my hands forward, after which they placed three differently shaped objects [in my hands] one by one, putting each of them into bags in turn, and then asked whether I knew what they were. I said no. They replied that one of those objects was the remote control with which I had blown up Sushko, and then they left.
Around 10 September 2023, I was taken, in handcuffs and with a bag over my head, to the room where I had been tortured, seated on a chair, had hair samples taken from my arms, and was returned.
Around 12 September, I was taken to the above-mentioned room in exactly the same sequence. They explained that I would now be questioned by an investigator and that I should not change the testimony in which I confessed to blowing up Sushko. When a man entered and placed a laptop on the table, he told me to describe in detail how and with whom I had blown up Sushko. No defence lawyers were present during these actions, and none of my rights were explained to me. In response to this proposal, because I hoped that he really was an investigator, I explained that I had not been involved in this crime, that I had been forced under torture to confess and incriminate myself. He said, ‘All right,’ and went somewhere. I was left alone.
About five minutes later, several people came in and began beating me. I do not know who they were, but they told me not to make life harder for myself, not to lose what little health I had left, and to think about my mother’s fate. Then they gave me a cigarette and time to think, and strongly recommended that I not tempt fate and that I give the testimony that had previously been agreed.
Then the interrogation, or questioning, began, during which I was forced to give testimony incriminating myself in connection with Sushko’s bombing, which I had not actually committed. The initial testimony was given in an unknown place, without defence lawyers, which is a violation of Article 51 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation and Article 75 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. This man saw the condition I was in and the injuries I had, and paid no attention to it. At the end of the interrogation, I asked him for heart medication. He replied, yes, all right, I will bring it. Obviously, I never received any medication, and I was taken back to the cell.
Around the evening of 14 September 2023, two officers in balaclavas came in, brought my Lenovo laptop, Redmi 8 mobile phone, and Samsung tablet, and asked for the password to unlock them. I explained that my devices did not have lock codes. They turned them on, made sure they were working, and took them away. I do not know where my belongings are now.
Around 8 a.m. on 15 September 2023, I was taken, in handcuffs and with a bag over my head, to the room where I had been tortured, and was told that a polygraph test would now be conducted. One officer was sitting at a table with a laptop, and two others were sitting by the window. After the initial questions, they moved on to questions related to the bombing; no other questions were asked. The polygraph lasted about three or four hours, after which I was returned to the cell. After that polygraph test concerning Sushko’s bombing, I was no longer asked any questions about it.
That same evening, I was transferred to a large hangar measuring six by twelve metres and four metres high, apparently a former household chemicals warehouse, where I was held until 27 November 2023.
Around 16 September, two young men, residents of the city of Melitopol, were placed with me. I was held with them for a long time. These citizens gave witness testimony in this trial.
From around 18 September, I was taken out three or four times to sign some protocols and statements, without even being allowed to read them and without a defence lawyer present. I was told verbally that these were the statements I had previously given to the investigator. Apparently, they were adjusting various details, times, and places so that they more or less matched the case materials.
Around 20 November, I was taken to the above-mentioned room, where, dictating to me, the citizens in balaclavas made me write a statement in Russian saying that I was an employee acting as an agent of the Security Service of Ukraine. I do not know for what purpose.
At around 6 a.m. on 27 November 2023, I was tied up, with a bag over my head, and taken in the boot of a UAZ Patriot to Mykhailivka, where an interrogation by an investigator took place in the presence of a lawyer. I want to note that I was wearing light clothing, the same clothes in which I had been taken from my home. At that time, it was freezing outside, and there was snow on the ground, which speaks to their inhumanity and lawlessness.
When we arrived, about 15 minutes later, some man approached the car. He did not introduce himself and [was] in civilian clothes, although I was being escorted by people in camouflage uniforms, the same people who had abducted me from my home and later tortured me. The man who approached me gave me a piece of paper and told me to write a statement terminating the search for me, and to sign one of the sheets set aside for explanations. You understand that I could not refuse. At the same time, [the plain-clothes man] explained that my mother had filed a missing person report and that he needed to close it because I had been found. I do not know what was written in the explanations; I did not give them.
Then the officers who had brought me conducted "explanatory work": they told me not to create problems and to give the previously fabricated testimony. If I refused, I would be returned to the basement, and the "educational work" would continue.
After the questioning as a suspect and as an accused person, at around 1 a.m. on 28 November 2023, I was placed in the temporary detention facility in the city of Melitopol in accordance with all the rules. At the Melitopol temporary detention facility, I met Danylo Smola and Oleksandr Liakhovchenko and learned that they were also involved in the Sushko bombing case.
On 5 December 2023, investigative actions were carried out, a reconstruction and we were arrested by the court in the city of Vasylivka, Zaporizhzhia Oblast. During the reconstruction, I pointed to fictitious places, or, more precisely, places that had been agreed in advance.
On 5 December 2023, we were transferred to pre-trial detention centre No. 2 in Simferopol, in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, where I saw and met Dmytro Novikov and Oleksii Kyrychenko for the first time; they were also involved in the Sushko case.
Mykhailivka. Screenshot: Google Maps
The trial
"During the trial, I stated that unlawful methods of inquiry had been used against me. The court did not apply Article 75 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation to me and did not declare my initial testimony inadmissible. A purely formal check was carried out into the officers providing operational support in the criminal case, the people who abducted me, tortured me, persuaded me to incriminate myself, falsified the criminal case materials, and deliberately concealed footage from outdoor surveillance cameras."
Teteriev described in detail the location of the cameras on the building of the Mykhailivka military-civilian administration. According to him, the parking lot footage would have confirmed that he had not approached Sushko’s car: "I am not in the video." However, this footage was not examined in court.
"Nor was any inspection carried out of the place where we were held, although the address had already been established: Lesi Ukrainky Street, Melitopol. The prosecutor’s office would have found it very interesting; they would have seen many new things for themselves about how serious and especially serious crimes are pinned on innocent citizens. On the wall, there is an inscription I scratched out in the middle, on the left side behind the column: ‘Teteriev, Mykhailivka. Held here 17.09.2023 — 17.10.2023 — 17.11.2023.’"
The court did not question the authors of the explosives and chemical expert reports in the case. According to the initial testimony Teteriev gave under torture, he had planted the bomb inside the car. However, "this completely contradicts the expert report," which showed that the explosion had been directed into the cabin from under the chassis.
"Also, in the spring of 2024, an FSB operative came to see me at pre-trial detention centre No. 2 in Simferopol and asked: ‘How is it that the explosive device was planted under the chassis of the car, and not, as you say, inside the cabin?’ I replied that I would discuss this issue only with the investigator. To that, I was told to think carefully about how I would explain it. After that, he left, and I never saw him again. The fact of the visit should be registered at pre-trial detention centre No. 2."
If the explosion had occurred inside the cabin, Sushko’s adopted daughter would have had no chance of survival. "As far as I know, in an enclosed space, an explosion is amplified twofold; that is pure physics. Whoever had been inside the car, everyone would have been killed by the blast wave. So the question remains: how is that possible?"
The remote control with which, according to the FSB, Teteriev activated the bomb was "found" only a year after the explosion.
"The collection of perspiration and skin oil traces from the remote control also raises doubts. If it had really been lying there, then after spending roughly five to ten days in a natural open environment, it would have been unsuitable for identifying a person. This is not blood, hair, or semen, which are substances that retain information for a long time. According to the investigator’s version, this remote control lay on an open surface for more than a year before it was found and seized. The question arises: how is that possible? This remote control was found and seized according to my initial testimony, which was beaten out of me in the basement. At the place where it was found and seized, a fortified area of the Russian Federation’s army was being built between September 2022 and April 2023. Many military personnel and civilians passed through there, livestock also grazed there, and there was constant vehicle traffic. By finding this remote control, the FSB officers themselves documented their criminal activity, thereby confirming the complete falsification of the charges brought against me."
Teteriev’s phone records were not examined in court either. "This would have shown that, at the time of Sushko’s bombing, I was at work 12 kilometres from the site of the explosion."
"Drop all the unlawful charges against me, rehabilitate me, and release me from custody in the courtroom so that I can return home without hindrance, work the land, help my mother, and feed my family. I believe that the laws and judicial system of the Russian Federation work and will not allow the tragic events that took place in the USSR in the 1930s, when it was a terrible time, when people were imprisoned, and their lives were broken on the basis of denunciations. Over time, they were rehabilitated during the debunking of the cult of personality. I hope this will not happen now."
Volodymyr Teteriev read this statement during closing arguments on 1 June. A week later, he was due to make his final statement in court, but officers at Rostov pre-trial detention centre No. 1 confiscated his draft as he was leaving his cell.
Editor: Dmitry Tkachev
