19 August 2024
(Photo collage: Intent)
People's Deputy Artem Dmytruk announced his intention to appeal to law enforcement agencies because of a post by the deputy commander of the 14th Regiment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Yevhen Karas, in which he called for the MP to be restrained.
The military officer's dissatisfaction was caused by Artem Dmytruk's post on Telegram, in which he criticized the actions of the Ukrainian military in the Kursk region of Russia and called them unpatriotic.
In particular, the MP said that the Ukrainian military were making a mess in shops, mocking elderly locals by pretending to be Germans from the Second World War and destroying monuments. According to Artem Dmytruk, such videos encourage Russians to join their army.
There are indeed videos of such mockery on the Internet, but according to the Center for Countering Disinformation, such videos are distributed by Russian propagandists, creating them themselves.
Yevhen Karas accused the MP of calling the Ukrainian military names and demanded to find out how the MP was traveling and called for him to be arrested and restrained, noting that the perpetrator would likely have to spend some time in a pre-trial detention center.
Yevhen Karas was supported by volunteer bloggers Serhiy Sternenko and Ihor Lachenkov, who also posted on their Telegram channels against Artem Dmytruk. In particular, Sergiy Sternenko reminded that the MP did not hide his cooperation with Viktor Medvedchuk and expressed the opinion that for the safety of the MP himself, he should be punished by law.
Ihor Lachenkov, in turn, accused Artem Dmytruk of treason and was outraged that the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine has not yet taken action against the MP.
His colleague Yevhen Shevchenko, who, like Artem Dmytruk, was once a member of the Servant of the People party, spoke out in defense of Artem Dmytruk. He said that all those who threaten Dmytruk are ordinary criminals.
Artem Dmytruk is a Member of Parliament of the IX convocation (since 2019), elected in constituency 133 (Odesa region). He is also an entrepreneur and professional athlete who ran the professional boxing federation of Odesa and the region.
In July 2024, he became a subdeacon of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP).
A subdeacon is the most senior clergyman of the Russian Orthodox Church.
In November last year, Artem Dmytruk joined those who wanted to preserve the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine. In October 2023, Artem Dmytruk was accused of beating a man in the capital.
Earlier, the police opened proceedings on the fact of violence against a public figure because of MP Artem Dmytruk's statement about the beating. The MP allegedly came to one of Odesa's business centers to check whether a criminal call center was operating there.
In November 2021, Dmytruk was expelled from the Servant of the People faction.