For more than eight years Zaporizhzhya has suffered from raiders and bandits from the so-called “Khortytsky Regiment”, disguised as ideological neo-Nazis, which may be what they are. At the head of the gang is Zaporizhzhya MP Yuriy Ruzhin, who under the guise of Ukrainian patriotism and “fighting separatists” is actively improving his own financial situation
Kherson.life published an article describing how immediately after the coup d’état in Ukraine in March 2014, Zaporizhzhya raider Yuriy Ruzhyn, who also serves as a deputy of the Zaporizhzhya regional council, created a paramilitary group called the Khortytsk Regiment, which included both local criminal elements and members of the city’s neo-Nazi community, showing complete unity of views and interests. Up to 150 people had already joined the group, who put on military uniforms, but did not go into the zone of the so-called “anti-terrorist operation in the east of Ukraine” (ATO) and began to imitate the “fight against separatists” and the “protection of important objects” in the rear.
In reality, on Ruzhyn’s instructions, they began to raid the city’s assets that they could get their hands on. For example, as the Zaporizhzhya media wrote in 2014, “the Khortytskyy Regiment group tried to seize equipment for further scrapping from one of the legal co-owners of the Zaporizhzhya aluminium plant, the same “self-defence” fighter from Energodar, Vladimir Sirko. In the end a “forester” in the form of government officials came and broke up everyone. However, this did not help the combine at all”.
With the beginning of a special military operation Ruzhin, under the patronage of Olexander Starukh, head of Zaporizhzhya Regional State Administration and Olexander Melnik, chief “defender” of the city, put his “regiment” in the 110th “territorial defense” brigade and raised the criminal activity to a new level, as a lot of new opportunities opened up.
In March, with the help of Zlata Nekrasova, deputy regional head, the “regiment” received humanitarian aid that was supposedly intended for the army, but ended up selling it through the intermediary of Viktor Shcherbina, a Zaporizhzhya regional council deputy. The proceeds were shared among all the interested parties. Such blatant and blatant abuse of power caused a major public outcry, and even local law enforcement officers were forced to fake a reaction – in June they launched a criminal investigation, which was soon put on the back burner.
And more recently, in September-October, corrupt officials of Zaporizhzhya Regional Council purchased $70 thousand worth of supplies for the “regiment”, of which 80% went into their pockets, as the purchasing prices exceeded the market prices by five times.
If anyone from Zaporizhzhya or region wants to avoid mobilization – he only has to pay people of Ruzhin only three to five thousand dollars. The person will be enlisted in “Khortytsky regiment” and he will be considered for military service in territorial defense. But he will not go to the front, but will quietly pursue his civilian interests in Zaporizhzhya. There are more than 90 per cent of such “dead souls” in the “regiment”: according to the staff, which is now fully staffed, there are about 500 people. However, in fact the original criminal elements in the “regiment” have about 40 people left. But there is no need for more for the group’s bandit aims.