"You’re chained up, you pee in bottle and poop on plate." Taras Borovskyi, lawyer for RVC fighter Kaplunov
Lawyer Taras Borovskyi joins us. We will talk about all the most important things that have happened in recent days, as Taras represents Kaplunov, a member of the RVC special unit operating as part of the "Timur" unit, who, according to Taras’s account, was abducted by SSU officers to force him to work for the SSU (Security Service of Ukraine).
You are watching Butusov Plus. My name is Iryna Romaliiska.
Taras, welcome.
— Good afternoon.
— Thank you for nevertheless finding the time to join us. We have been looking forward to speaking with you. First, please clarify: who had a measure of restraint imposed on them yesterday, and what was it?
— Yesterday, a measure of restraint was imposed on Serhii, an officer of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU). He arrived at the scene when SSU officers brought Stepan Kaplunov, who had been abducted ten days earlier, to his home to conduct what they claimed was an urgent search.
— And did Serhii fire shots that night?
— Serhii did not fire. He ran to the scene and showed his Defence Intelligence of Ukraine officer ID. They began firing at his feet and ordering him to get on the ground, an order he did not obey for quite some time.
— That’s interesting, tell us how it happened. As I understand it, we are talking about the events that night.
— We are talking about events captured on video: someone is filming from an upper-floor window, swearing and saying that something is happening there. Gunfire in Berezniaky. The first burst of gunfire occurred at around 11:20 p.m. on September 1.
— Our full breakdown of what happened was published on the channel yesterday. If you have not watched it, please do. Taras, then please tell us about this shooting, because I know of two such incidents. The one in the morning, when SSU officers fired at DIU officers. I also know there was another one in the evening, when SSU officers were leaving the entrance to the building. A DIU officer then opened fire. Are you now saying there was a third incident?
— Please, you waited so long for me, and now you are sowing such confusion. It was actually quite unpleasant for me to hear that just now.
— I’m sorry. Please go ahead.
— DIU officers did not fire a single shot. They are not idiots who would open fire in a residential neighbourhood of Kyiv where they grew up.
On August 23, Kaplunov was abducted by officers of the SSU Counterintelligence Department. They tortured him, threatened to kill him, and forced him to confess to every mortal sin on camera. We will apparently soon see more videos in which he confesses to killing Kennedy, perhaps poisoning Adolf Hitler, and committing other incredible crimes.
In response to my formal request as his lawyer, the Security Service of Ukraine stated that it had conducted no procedural actions involving Kaplunov since August 23 and had not detained him.
DIU officers were staying in the apartment where he lived. They lived there. On the night of September 1–2, special forces officers from the SSU Counterintelligence Department arrived and broke down the apartment door.
An alert was raised within the DIU’s "Timur Special Unit." In response to that alert, one of the first, probably the first, to run to the scene was Serhii, who appeared in court yesterday. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt and carrying his service pistol.
As he approached the entrance to the building, he saw weapons being aimed at him. At that very moment, they were already detaining some people who had arrived in the courtyard by car, threatening to shoot them and forcing them to the ground.
He said, "Stay calm, I’m with the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine," and showed his officer ID. They ordered him to get on the ground, but he refused. They then repeatedly fired at his feet.
— Who did?
— That is everything that happened. Officers of the Security Service of Ukraine, specifically the Counterintelligence Department.
Because Alpha did not fire at people. Alpha probably has far better training, including when it comes to maintaining composure.
— What exactly is he accused of, then? The hearing was closed, so we cannot know for certain. The charge against him is attempted murder of law enforcement officers, isn’t it?
— Because shots rang out at night - many shots; the sound of gunfire was heard. So they allege that, from somewhere in the distance and in the middle of the night, he made out that the people there were law enforcement officers and that they were specifically performing their official duties.
Having ascertained this, he allegedly decided to obstruct them in the performance of their official duties. He therefore opened fire with a pistol from a distance of more than 100 metres. That is what the document says. But he missed because it was dark. This does not add up. No pistol cartridge cases were found at the scene, even though they searched for them.
— Let us be clear. So he is accused of firing at them, of making an attempt on their lives after all? You began by saying that I was lying, while I am trying to establish the facts.
— Yes, but you are not the only one lying; law enforcement officers are lying as well. Do you understand? There are a great many lies in this story.
He is accused of an attempt on the life of a law enforcement officer. Several questions actually arise from the factual allegations in the notice of suspicion that I have just outlined.
First, the effective range of a pistol is no more than about 20 metres. Only an idiot would fire a short-barrelled weapon from 100 metres away; it is impossible to hit the target.
Then there is another question: if he missed because it was dark, how could he have ascertained, when it was dark, that those people were law enforcement officers and that they were performing their official duties?
How could he have ascertained that when every law enforcement agency in Ukraine had denied responsibility for Stepan Kaplunov’s abduction, and every DIU serviceman and everyone who went there to provide support that evening believed only one thing: that he had been abducted by criminals or hostile intelligence operatives?
Accordingly, when responding to the alert, everyone expected to encounter criminals there, certainly not law enforcement officers, much less officers performing their official duties. Especially given that the Security Service of Ukraine had informed me in writing: it was not us, we were not there, we did not abduct him, and we are not conducting any investigative actions.
When Serhii arrived at the scene, he expected to encounter criminals and no one else. At the same time, armed with only a pistol, he would not have fired at them from a distance. He did not fire, and no cartridge cases were found.
The pistol has not yet undergone forensic examination, but it will obviously not show that he fired it that day.
And all of this truly is a complete lie. I am sorry for interrupting you slightly. I was trying to be courteous. I have not slept for several days and have already told this story many times. It is simply difficult to hear yet another cock-and-bull story, invented by whom I do not know, perhaps some retired SSU generals who are now commenting on the events from their sofas despite not having been there.
— I simply spoke to people who were there, so I can say this.
— Who was there?
— Well, I am not going to tell you that.
— Some anonymous people in masks. I am Taras Borovskyi, a lawyer. You know, and everyone knows my phone number, where I live, who my family is, and what car I drive. I speak the truth openly, with my face uncovered.
But people in masks tell incredible stories to justify themselves and avoid going to prison today for shooting unarmed people...
— Why do you call them unarmed?
— DIU officers did not use their weapons at the moment when...
— But they were armed. You are calling them "unarmed people."
— I myself was among the group of people who came under fire that morning. There were about ten of us. Between the ten of us, there were only a couple of pistols that had been received as awards, concealed in holsters.
One man drew his pistol after officers from the SSU Counterintelligence Department fired the first shots at us. He immediately suffered the most serious wound. He was shot; they were aiming for his groin. That would have been a fatal wound. They hit him higher up.
— Are you now talking about the shooting that morning?
— Yes, because gunfire was used solely to detain Serhii. There was no other shooting.
— That is according to your account; according to the SSU, he fired. Understood. You say that your client was tortured. Yet he himself said in an interview with NV that no physical force had been used against him. Who is right in this situation, you or him?
— Torture does not necessarily involve only the use of physical force. When he was detained, he...
Let us imagine it. We can close our eyes, relax, and imagine ourselves in Stepan Kaplunov’s place.
You spend ten days, or nearly ten days, there. You are held in an unknown location. There is constantly some rag over your head, wrapped in adhesive tape. You cannot see what is happening. One of your hands is cuffed; there is a metre of chain from it to a ring in the wall and a metre back. Your other hand is also cuffed here.
People come in periodically and bring you Mivina instant noodles. You pee into a bottle and poop on a plate. Then, from time to time, people come in and force you to record videos while threatening that they will simply kill you, that no one is looking for you, that you have no procedural status whatsoever, and that you must confess to every sin in order to falsely implicate your comrades-in-arms and senior commanders.
Is that not torture? Does something qualify as torture only if it involves a blowtorch?
— I am relying solely on his own words. He simply said that no physical force had been used against him. But yes, he says that it was some kind of secret prison and that he was chained up.
Right. Then let us clarify one more point. You said that people responded to an alert. Do you know, and could you explain to us, on whose orders armed military intelligence personnel came to Kyiv?
— On their own initiative, after receiving this information. We simply have a shared group in one of the messaging apps. An alert is posted there, and we all head out.
— And you are also a representative of this unit, if I understand correctly?
— I am simply the lawyer for many people from this unit. I have many friends there, including many childhood friends.
We trained together, competed in tournaments, fought in the streets, went to football matches, and supported Dynamo Kyiv. I have many friends from Berezniaky and Rusanivka.
— Yes, of course. I have had eight concussions, a cerebral contusion, and a cranial vault fracture.
— From football-related fights?
— From football-related fights.
— Please tell me, then, on the 23rd... I just want to clarify these details. Your client was abducted on the 23rd, and there was no contact with him. On the 26th, you wrote: "My client has been abducted." Had you signed a retainer agreement with him before that, or how did this come about?
— I signed an agreement with him a long time ago. I learned of his abduction from his comrades-in-arms on August 24. We disclosed the information about his abduction later because we were examining every possible scenario given the sensitive nature of the situation, the fact that he serves in intelligence, and so on.
— Does he have any other criminal cases against him? Why did you sign an agreement with him so long ago?
— No, there were questions concerning the legality of his existence, so to speak, his presence in Ukraine, and so on.
— He has a Russian passport, correct? Let us get to the substance. The account given by the SSU and part of the DIU. It should be noted, as we discussed yesterday, that these were not only SSU officers but also some DIU personnel representing its Internal Security Department, or what is it properly called?
— Internal Security.
— There is no "unit" or "department" in the name, just Internal Security?
— The names of all the components of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine are not exactly painted on a fence for everyone to see, and I will not disclose what they are called. That, too, is classified. Internal Security, we will call it IS.
— Fine. So these were officers of the Security Service of Ukraine and DIU Internal Security. Did they come to participate in this search?
Okay, whether it was a search or not, whether these were investigative actions or not. There were already DIU personnel inside who represented the RVC and the "Timur" Special Unit. Am I correct so far?
— No.
— Please explain.
— Let us begin with the definitions. The RVC, the Russian Volunteer Corps, is one component of the "Timur" Special Unit. The "Timur" Special Unit is the larger formation.
The "Timur" Special Unit is directly incorporated into the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine and forms part of it, while the RVC is part of that unit.
There are many people in it. I am merely gesturing with my fingers to illustrate the difference in size. Accordingly, fighters from the "Timur" Special Unit were simply living in the apartment and were, to some extent, on alert duty there.
Officers from the SSU Main Investigation Department came to conduct the search. Investigators conduct searches. Generally, they are respectable-looking people—in jeans, pointy patent-leather shoes, and so on.
They were accompanied by a couple of dozen officers providing armed support ... As I understand it, there were around twenty or twenty-five SSU special forces officers, specifically from the Counterintelligence Department and, in part, the Alpha special unit.
The Alpha officers wore distinctive shiny or reflective armbands. They looked more respectable and behaved much better.
Accordingly, they arrived at the scene. However, they realised that they needed to legitimise their presence at this search somehow, so that they would not simply be planting items in such a blatant manner. They therefore also brought Stepan Kaplunov there. His presence was supposedly intended to legitimise this investigative action and demonstrate that it was lawful.
To lend it further legitimacy, they could have admitted his lawyer, but they did not. They did not allow me to participate in the investigative actions and did not notify me, even though I had informed them in writing that if any investigative actions were to take place, I was his lawyer and would come at any time. I gave them my phone number.
To lend it further legitimacy, so to speak, they brought in DIU IS at the last moment: they notified them ten or fifteen minutes before arriving at the scene.
Internal Security personnel arrived at the scene and discovered that Stepan Kaplunov was there, the man who had supposedly disappeared and had supposedly not been abducted by the SSU.
— Let me make this clear once again. One group consisted of the SSU, with your client, and DIU Internal Security. On the other side were fighters from the DIU’s "Timur" Special Unit. Correct?
— When you speak of a side, what exactly do you mean?
— That this was one side in the confrontation that escalated into shootouts in the middle of...
— DIU Internal Security was not on the SSU’s side.
— They were involved in those investigative actions...
— In the same way that a lawyer could have been involved in the investigative actions, as could the attesting witnesses.
There was this old man with a red beard, a really amusing character, and a woman who had been brought there sometime in the middle of the night and was paid to act as an attesting witness at night. Well, they were probably not on anyone’s side. They occupied some kind of neutral position.
Nor was Stepan Kaplunov... He was not on the side of the SSU Counterintelligence Department either. So yes.
— Is that why there was initially a joint statement by the SSU and DIU, after which the DIU statement disappeared? Do you know any details about that?
— I do not know. What statement?
— There was one from the DIU. In the morning, there were two press releases: one from the SSU and another from the DIU. They were almost identical, saying that a special operation was being conducted jointly and that the agencies were working together to apprehend a terrorist, and so on. What actually happened?
— Look, how can I explain this...
— It’s just that these were joint statements, and then the DIU removed its statement from its official pages without explanation.
I will take your word for it; perhaps they existed. How can I explain this at all? This information. I do not know; this report is from the SSU. I can explain it as follows.
When Stepan Kaplunov was brought there at night, when Serhii and several other people were detained, and everyone was forced to the ground, many members of the "Timur" Special Unit arrived at the scene.
I think several hundred fighters from the "Timur" Special Unit came to Kyiv that night.
— Several hundred? Yet you say they acted on their own initiative. Someone must have given an order for several hundred armed military special forces personnel to come there. I thought there were only a few dozen.
— They arrived in flip-flops, shorts and T-shirts because every special forces soldier is an ordinary person—our neighbour and the same kind of man as anyone we might encounter at a shop while queueing for Coca-Cola.
They had been at home, for example. They were on rotation.
— Who gave the order? Am I correct that military personnel cannot simply go somewhere of their own accord?
— No one gave an order. Acting on their own initiative, free citizens of a free country came to support their comrade-in-arms.
— Several hundred people suddenly found out and arrived at the same place at the same time.
— Why are you laughing? If the concepts of brotherhood and mutual support are unfamiliar to you, I feel sorry for you. But I also arrived entirely on my own initiative. Many people allege that the lawyers there are working for money and so on. I am providing legal assistance entirely free of charge.
I know that if I am abducted and tortured tomorrow, hundreds of my friends may stand up for me. That is an immense source of strength. No orders are needed for that.
— Great. Brotherhood is really great. There is just such a thing as military discipline, especially during wartime.
— Free people in a free country may go wherever they want outside working hours and while off duty.
— All right, I understand your position. You also said that you had notified the SSU that they were required to summon you for investigative actions. Am I therefore correct in understanding that you knew it was the SSU after all?
— Law enforcement agencies. I notified the SSU, the SBI and the National Police. The only agencies I did not notify were probably the Bureau of Economic Security and NABU.
I notified the Prosecutor General’s Office, which exercises procedural oversight over all investigative actions conducted by these law enforcement agencies.
I informed the Prosecutor General that abducted DIU serviceman Stepan Kaplunov was my client. If some law enforcement agency was responsible and intended to conduct an investigative action, the prosecutor’s office exercises oversight in every criminal proceeding and should have been informed that this man had a lawyer, Taras Borovskyi. Here is his telephone number; summon him.
Because we raised the alarm everywhere. Everyone wants to speak to me now. But when I posted on Facebook a week ago that someone had been abducted, those posts received, I do not know, thirty likes from my relatives. No one was interested. Now everyone wants to discuss it.
— Taras, let us get to the point. The SSU’s account is that your client collaborated with people from Russia or with the FSB, because this has been described in different ways. Their wording is that contacts were uncovered between the deputy commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry’s Defence Intelligence and Russian intelligence services.
The individual in question was allegedly supposed to prepare an assassination attempt against one of the leaders of the Russian opposition movement, who was due to arrive in Ukraine at that time.
The SSU then published messages that supposedly corroborate this, as well as your client’s confession, if we can call it that, or his alleged confession, depending on whose side one takes.
Your client himself says in the interview that the messages were real. He says: "I redirected this communication to my immediate superior, Dmitry Ivanov."
Please explain, because I did not understand what that means, what "redirected the communication" means, and so on.
— As his lawyer, I do not know the details of the operational activities conducted by the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, including communications with hostile intelligence services, special operations, information operations and, shall we say, espionage and intelligence activities.
I do not have that information. As I understand this phrase from Stepan’s account, when FSB officers contacted him, he reported it to his immediate commander.
His commander probably supervised the communication to derive some benefit from it for Ukraine’s defence. Do you understand what I mean?
— Yes. But did that happen, and was it formally documented?
— I do not know. And please tell me which law and which procedure stipulate how this should be formally documented.
Take, for example, an undercover law enforcement officer who infiltrates a gang, as in American films, and behaves in a particular way to gain their trust. Is that formally documented?
— It is not formally documented, but if that person commits crimes, they may be exempted from liability. That is provided for in the Criminal Code. It is established in court through witness testimony and by reconstructing the relevant chronology of events.
They do not necessarily issue him a certificate or an order from the head of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine stating: "We order you to communicate with the FSB on Telegram, accept contracts to eliminate Russian opposition figures, take money for it," and so on.
When the special operation to purportedly eliminate Denis Kapustin, White Rex, was conducted shortly before New Year, as 2025 became 2026, how extensively do you think it was documented at the time in the names of the supposed assassins? DIU officers communicated with the FSB operatives who had commissioned the hit and received half a million dollars from them for carrying out the task of eliminating Denis.
They edited a video to make it appear that he had been eliminated, received the money, kept everyone in suspense, and then announced to the public that he was alive.
How is something like that documented? Is it entered in the combat log, or where? Will you and I ever be shown those documents? I do not think so.
— All right, I will not argue with you about this because I do not have your level of legal experience. I will take your word for it that such things do not have to be documented.
Have I understood your position correctly, then? Some people from Russia did contact him; he exchanged messages with them, and he reported this to his superior. After that, however, his communications with those people took place under his superior’s supervision.
But there is no documentary evidence of any of this. What exactly was it?
— That is roughly how I understand this account. At the same time, I want to emphasise once again that I do not know the details of the DIU’s operational activities.
— Well, you have so many friends there. You say you have been friends with them for a long time and share such strong bonds of brotherhood.
— I will not disclose this or paste a notice on a fence explaining how it happened. Let me say this again. For example, law enforcement agencies conduct what is known as a controlled purchase when they want to document the sale of narcotics or weapons. The purchase is documented.
They make the purchase and then catch the person red-handed, and so on. The same applies to handing over a bribe using money marked with dye, and so on. All of that takes place. But at the preparatory stage, there are no documents concerning it.
— I will not argue with you about that. Did the people in Russia who contacted him actually ask him to assassinate Zakayev?
— I am not a DIU intelligence officer. I do not have that information.
— He is your client. That is the very essence of the case.
— This is covered by attorney-client privilege, and I cannot and will not answer those questions. Doing so would be unprofessional, unethical, stupid, and harmful to the case.
— So he is accused of accepting a contract to kill Zakayev, but you will not comment on it.
— I could message you right now with a request to kill someone else, and you would receive and read it. Would that constitute a crime? Preparation to commit murder may constitute a crime, and even then not always; it depends on the stage. Attempted murder is a crime. Murder is a crime. But if I ask you to do something, such as commit murder, and you receive that request, you presumably should not be tortured for ten days simply for receiving it, correct?
— So you will not say whether there was such a request?
— I simply cannot say, neither confirm nor deny it.
— By the way, a quick heads-up for our viewers. Today, Zakayev has promised to give me a comment on this matter. It will be interesting to hear what he says.
We have contacted him as well. Incidentally, I know that he really was in Kyiv for Independence Day. This was also discussed extensively yesterday. I had been trying to arrange an interview with him for some time, and on August 23 his assistant contacted me and said we could do it on the 24th, but it did not work out. He was definitely in Kyiv, though. All right, let us move on.
— Do you know that he recently posted a photograph of Akhmed Zakayev and Kyrylo Budanov shaking hands in an office on Bankova Street?
And do you know that Kyrylo Budanov and the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine provide tremendous assistance in helping Chechen men fighting for the independence of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria obtain legal status?
Kyrylo Budanov and Akhmed Zakayev know each other well and respect each other. Timur is also a good friend of Kyrylo Budanov. Kaplunov is Timur’s subordinate and comrade-in-arms. And it all looks simply ridiculous.
— Well, if I were an FSB officer, I would look for exactly that kind of... Oh, I would find precisely the person with direct access to Zakayev.
— As a journalist, you can gain direct access to Zakayev by inviting him for an interview. However, he has a security service that handles matters including his movements, physical protection, and so on.
Gaining physical access is not difficult at all today. Gaining physical access to virtually anyone is not difficult, except for a very small number of highly protected individuals.
— Taras, why did you mention that Zakayev had shaken Budanov’s hand?
— My point is that this is a community of comrades-in-arms, and everyone who cares about a free Ukraine and the free Ukrainian people, including Akhmed Zakayev, Stepan Kaplunov, Timur, Kyrylo Budanov and SSU officers, cares about a free Ukraine.
— But how is that supposed to prove to me that FSB officers could not have commissioned your client to assassinate him? I simply do not understand where you are going with this.
— I will explain the principle of the presumption of innocence to you if you are unfamiliar with it. It tells us that every person is presumed innocent until a court finds otherwise.
There is also another side to this principle: no one is required to prove their own innocence. No one. I am not required to prove my client’s innocence to you here.
— I am not asking you to prove anything. I am simply asking you to address the facts: yes or no.
— I am explaining to you that, morally speaking, Akhmed Zakayev and Stepan Kaplunov are broadly like-minded people and allies. They have friends in common, respect and look to the same people, and stand shoulder to shoulder in support of a free Ukraine.
— Listen, can you entertain the possibility that Kaplunov really did want to kill Zakayev and that he may be lying to you?
— I have worked as a lawyer for many years. Some clients may not tell me everything. Some clients come to me and tell me that they did not harm anyone but that someone wants to put them in prison. That happens.
But examine Stepan Kaplunov’s life. He served in the GRU special forces and has been fighting for Ukraine since 2014.
I will send you photographs showing how Russian forces tore him to pieces in the village of Lukianivka near Brovary, how they practically had to gather him up piece by piece, almost into a bag, and then stitch him back together; how he underwent rehabilitation and suffered at Russia’s hands for a long time, and so on.
Does he not prove through his actions, rather than empty words, his love for a free Ukraine and the free Ukrainian people, as well as his hatred of our enemies?
— Taras, I do not want in any way to...
— I will not discuss with you the possibility that my client may be lying to me. That would be unethical.
— All right. It is simply also a fact that he fought for Russia in Syria.
That is precisely why I say that he has had a complicated life. And that is why I do not know whom to believe in this situation. I am therefore asking whether you might have doubts.
You say that would be unethical, and of course I fully accept that. Let us continue.
— I have no doubts.
— Does he know Zakayev personally or not?
— I do not know.
— I would now like to address several discrepancies that caught my attention.
In the interview, he says that at the secret prison where he was taken on the first day after he was seized, he was chained up and interrogated for two days, but not on the third. He does not mention General Poklad there. In the video subsequently published by the RVC or its press service on its Telegram channel, however, he says it was three days and says that Poklad personally... I still did not understand what Poklad personally did. Please clarify.
— It is difficult to discuss. Did you watch the RVC video? He said that he had been held captive, so to speak. He said that during the first three days, the first three days, "such-and-such general worked with me." The first three days out of the many days he was held there. Is that linguistic construction clear?
— How did Poklad work with him?
— I do not know. I was not there. He did not work with me.
— And your client did not tell you? That is the main issue.
— No, my main concern is to protect my client from criminal prosecution.
As far as I know, there are no criminal proceedings against him. He has not been served with a notice of suspicion, and there is no indictment.
None of the other events are relevant to me in the context of protecting my client’s interests.
I can say that the State Bureau of Investigation has registered criminal proceedings over his abduction, torture, coercion into making the relevant confessions, and so on.
A pre-trial investigation is underway in that case. I cannot disclose details protected by the confidentiality of the pre-trial investigation that are known to me.
However, even under these circumstances, whether a particular general, who is, after all, the head of the body that carried out all of this, was present during these events is of no procedural relevance to me.
— And outside the procedural context? I would be extremely interested. How could you not find out? Poklad himself comes to him and wants something. Were you not interested in finding out what it was?
— According to Stepan, Poklad did work with him, yes.
— What did he do?
— He talked to him. Worked with him.
— What did he want?
— I do not know what he wanted, but we can see a video in which Stepan, under torture, confesses to all sorts of mortal sins. I do not know what he wanted to get out of him.
— What did they want to learn from Stepan, something about Budanov, or what? I simply do not understand. When you say, or when Stepan says that they wanted him to discredit someone somehow, did they want information about Budanov or about his commanders?
— If you have questions about what Stepan said, please ask Stepan.
— I would be delighted to. He was unable to come.
— He was unable to come because his security is evidently being ensured following his unlawful abduction. Today, he is once again a target, as, to some extent, each of us is a target for those who do not want him to tell the truth.
— Who are those people?
— His abductors.
— But we now know that they were not unidentified abductors; they were SSU officers and DIU Internal Security personnel.
— Officers from which internal security service?
— We established at the very beginning that DIU personnel were present during the investigative actions or search.
— Let me repeat: on August 23, he was abducted by unidentified individuals. Then he...
— But they have now been identified. My point is that we now know who they are.
— What does DIU Internal Security have to do with this? DIU Internal Security learned where he was and what was happening ten days later, just ten minutes before he was brought to the search.
— Yes, that is what I am saying. The people have now been identified.
— DIU Internal Security, yes. Why are you calling them abductors? Why are you including them among the abductors?
— Because they were there together with the SSU officers.
— When? For the final ten minutes, when he was brought to the search?
— And that, as I understand it, is precisely why the DIU issued a press release saying that it was a joint operation.
— As for the DIU press release, I will explain this to you once again. At least I will try, if you do not interrupt me, because you did not let me finish last time.
After the alert was raised at approximately 11 p.m. on September 1, several hundred DIU servicemen arrived at the scene. Your eyes widened when I said that, and you began changing the subject. Keep listening.
They arrived at the scene and blocked a vehicle carrying people who had SSU patches but were still unidentified at that point.
Commander Timur, who had been aware of the situation from the outset, personally arrived at the scene.
As a conscientious commander, unlike the head of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, please note, he cares about his fighters, including Stepan Kaplunov.
He came to the scene and reached an agreement to prevent any shooting, casualties, injuries, or this entire disgraceful situation witnessed by residents of the neighbourhood.
He secured an agreement that DIU personnel would stop blocking the courtyard and the vehicles, disperse and go home, allow SSU investigators to complete their investigative actions, and that Stepan would then be released.
Serhii, whose measure of restraint was determined yesterday, would then be released, as would the other people detained that night.
They shook hands. This agreement was reached at a high level.
The DIU servicemen then began heading home while the investigative actions continued. I remained there as Kaplunov’s lawyer.
About ten of my childhood friends, who are also servicemen from the "Timur" Special Unit, remained with me in the courtyard.
As the investigative actions were coming to an end, we saw news reports that the SSU had issued a statement claiming that a joint operation had been conducted, supposedly to prevent the assassination of the deputy commander of the RVC himself.
The operation had supposedly been carried out successfully through the joint efforts of the SSU and DIU. The SSU and DIU were friends, and so on. Everything was fine.
As I understand it, this was issued as part of the agreement simply to reassure the public. But literally half an hour later, officers from the SSU Counterintelligence Department attempted to detain several DIU servicemen and dragged them towards a vehicle.
DIU personnel tried to stop them.
The SSU Counterintelligence Department officers opened fire on people who were empty-handed and were pulling their comrades back.
I went around to the other side, planted myself there, and pushed back towards my team, so to speak. We enjoy playing rugby, and it was a rugby move, with absolutely no weapons involved.
One of the SSU Counterintelligence Department officers lost his nerve. Someone like that probably should not be given a weapon or allowed to serve there, because he fired the first shot. He could not handle the situation.
He apparently thought he could demonstrate that he was the stronger party.
After the first shot, a second person fired, and then a third person fired. When this kind of melee begins, and the first shots ring out, they are like the first domino falling or Pandora’s box being opened, and the bloodshed begins.
The SSU Counterintelligence Department officers started it.
— Once again, you are saying that the people were unarmed.
Once again, I am pointing out that White Rex, for example, said in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda that people on both sides were armed. He himself was carrying a weapon, and there were even light armoured vehicles. I simply did not know that there were hundreds of military intelligence personnel there, which is why my eyes widened.
I want to clarify something. You said that Timur, unlike the head of the DIU, cares about his people.
How, then, do you assess the actions of DIU chief Oleh Ivashchenko in this situation?
— Complete inaction. He made no effort whatsoever to help in this situation. I cannot imagine anything like this being possible when Kyrylo Oleksiiovych Budanov headed the DIU.
I think that if Kyrylo Oleksiiovych Budanov were still head of the DIU, he would have been there with us in Berezniaky, empty-handed against their guns. Where was Ivashchenko?
— Does Kyrylo Oleksiiovych currently command the "Timur" unit?
— Kyrylo Oleksiiovych now holds another position that is known to everyone.
— Can he influence the actions of the "Timur" unit?
— He cannot influence the actions of the "Timur" unit.
— Why do you think Oleh Ivashchenko adopted that position?
— I do not know.
— Are there currently no proceedings against your client?
— As his lawyer, I can say that neither my client nor I have been notified of any suspicion, and he has never been summoned for questioning. In fact, he is not even formally a suspect whom I am defending; he is simply my client, because there are no proceedings. I have not seen the report on the search of his apartment, which would normally state the criminal proceeding number. Nothing is known.
Accordingly, applying the principle of the presumption of innocence, we conclude that there are no proceedings.
— Well, that is a question for the SSU. If it says that this man was a terrorist, how can it then simply release him?
Do you know what concerns me most about this entire story? It turns out that a situation can arise in which two intelligence services confront each other in a residential neighbourhood of Kyiv, involving hundreds of people; armoured vehicles are deployed; armed people and military personnel, who, theoretically, should not simply be in residential areas carrying weapons without orders, turn up on their own initiative, and something like this happens.
It frightens me beyond measure. Does it not frighten you?
— It doesn’t frighten me, because these are dangerous times. And today, the war isn’t just being fought on the front line; it’s also being fought… It is also an intelligence war, a war in rear-area cities.
You aren’t often told about this; ordinary people, let’s say, and journalists do not learn that assassination attempts against Ukrainian intelligence officers are constantly being carried out in peaceful cities by FSB-hired assassins.
Sometimes they succeed; sometimes they are bungled. Accordingly, people need to be kept safe.
The community of friends of the "Timur" Special Unit is a fairly large organisation. I think the community of friends of the Alpha Special Unit is even larger. The community of friends of any other military unit is simply a community of friends and mutual assistance.
If necessary, as we have seen, servicemen who are friends of the "Timur" Special Unit are prepared to step into automatic gunfire to defend the freedom of their comrades-in-arms, like-minded people and allies.
Who else has friends like that?
— Can this be regarded as a confrontation between Poklad and Budanov?
— I do not know. I am just an ordinary guy who occasionally happens to be in Berezniaky. I do not comment on politics.
The only thing I can say is that the media portray this as some kind of conflict between the DIU and the SSU. It must not be described that way under any circumstances.
We, as well as the officers and representatives of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, respect our colleagues from the Security Service of Ukraine and greatly value their contribution to Ukraine’s defence.
There may even be a little envy of the successes demonstrated by the Security Service of Ukraine. We all love the Security Service of Ukraine.
This regrettable incident occurred solely because of the inept and unprofessional actions of certain officers from the SSU Counterintelligence Department.
You understand that there are no bad nations, only bad people.
— Incidentally, that is precisely why we said that this was more likely a confrontation not between the DIU and the SSU, but between Poklad and Budanov.
— I know nothing about any confrontation between Poklad and Budanov. To me, they are both worthy generals, each performing his respective task in his respective position.
— Kaplunov now says that he is under protection. Whose protection is it?
— I do not know whether it is actually a security detail. The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine is evidently ensuring his safety.
— What is happening with the case concerning his abduction? The Prosecutor General wrote yesterday, I believe, that there was one proceeding investigating the events of the night of September 1–2 and another concerning the abduction of your client, although the Prosecutor General used a different term. He did not call it an abduction; he used some other word.
— Disappearance, I think.
— Disappearance, yes. Forcible deprivation of liberty, unlawful detention. What is happening with that case?
— The SBI is investigating the case. Stepan Kaplunov is giving testimony in those proceedings.
Based on his testimony, the SBI is attempting to determine where he was held, who those people were, and the identities of the specific individuals involved.
After all, criminal charges cannot be brought against some nominal organisation; they must be brought against the specific people who committed the acts.
Accordingly, the investigation is continuing. We support and place our hopes in the State Bureau of Investigation, which is specifically responsible for investigating crimes committed, among others, by military personnel and officers of the Security Service of Ukraine.
The facts are being verified.
— Taras, one final question, please.
One of the commanders of the "Timur" unit, Ruslan Kahanets, wrote on Facebook, and I quote: "The SBI detained three special forces officers from the Fifth Directorate of the SSU Counterintelligence Department. One of them is Oleksandr Bova. He opened fire at DIU officers during the night. He may also have been the person who killed Denys Kireiev in 2022."
Please tell us about Bova’s role and where he is now, if you know.
— As far as I know, he is one of the senior commanders of the SSU Counterintelligence Department’s special forces.
Accordingly, as I understand it, he was either among those who opened fire or gave the order to fire at us while we were there.
As for his involvement in any other killings, including Kireiev’s, I have heard such information, but I have no way of verifying it.
Admittedly, I heard it from credible people whom I trust.
— Has Bova been detained?
— I do not know.
— Taras, thank you immensely for finding the time and, unlike all the other participants in these events, being willing to answer the difficult questions that have arisen.
Let me remind our viewers that neither the SBI nor the SSU is willing to do so, even though I also have a great many questions for the SSU.
— You see, they are all constrained by their superiors and are in service, whereas I am a free man and can say whatever I consider appropriate.
Thank you for inviting me. I tried to answer as fully as possible. I apologise for being discourteous at certain points.
I apologise to you and to the viewers. I have not slept properly for several days, with all these chases, shootouts, and abductions. I am sorry.
— Thank you very much, Taras. Goodbye.
— Goodbye.
Well, let us wrap up.
That was Taras Borovskyi, the lawyer for a man who, according to him, was abducted by SSU officers, leading to the shootings on the night of September 1–2 and on September 2, and prompting several hundred armed military intelligence officers, as we now know, to converge on the capital. There were even armoured vehicles.
It was a clash involving gunfire between SSU and DIU personnel, or between Poklad’s people and Budanov’s people. Watch our full breakdown on the channel; we published it yesterday afternoon.
My name is Iryna Romaliiska. This is the Butusov Plus channel.
See you.
