The group, which included 15

Ukrainian servicemen, one Swedish and one Georgian citizen, spent months as

hostages in Horlivka, one of the last remaining strongholds of the

Kremlin-backed separatists led by defiant rebel commander Igor Bezler who goes

by the nickname of “Demon.”

These people were set free in

an exchange for Olga Kulygina, believed to be a Russian Security Service agent.

One of the released was Vasily

Budik, a Georgian national and Ukrainian activist from Horlivka, who spent 88

days in captivity, enduring torture. In this time, he learned about the

executions of 35 people and the massive destruction of the city by Ukraine’s

artillery. At the same time, some 32 people were released.

“There were three months of

waiting for either exchange or execution,” Budik told the Kyiv Post in an

interview on Aug. 1.

On May 2, Budik and

his wife were coming out from a shop in Horlivka when a group of masked armed

men pushed him into a car and drove him to a separatist-controlled police

station.

He was then interrogated and

tortured by Russian agents, who accused him of links with Right Sector, Ukraine’s

far right nationalist group and planning to lead pro-Ukrainian volunteer

battalions.

“They were taking a knife and

picking my knee up to the bone… They broke our ribs on one side and three from

the other side. They beat my mid-section. They hanged me with my hands

handcuffed,” he said.

Then his captors put Budik in

a cellar, where he caught pneumonia, but survived thanks to the help of a nurse

who was treating the hostages. While Budik knows Right Sector leader Dmytro

Yarosh, he denied any links to the group.

After 20 years in Horlivka,

Budik and separatist chief Bezler — who also lived there for 12 years and once

managed a funeral home in the city – had many links in common.

“Many friends were calling him

and asking to release me, offering money. The maxim sum offered for was me $50,000,”

Budik said. “But they had no interest in money. They needed an exchange for

Olga (Kulygina).”

Kulygina

The mysterious Kulygina,

officially working as a journalist for the pro-Kremlin Anna News agency, was

arrested in late May by Ukrainian forces when she was crossing the border from

Russia along with a big sum of money and dozens of armed rebels. Numerous sources

reported she is a close friend of self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic’s

leaders Igor Girkin (Strelkov) and Aleksandr Borodai.

Olga Kulygina. (с) Pierre Crom

Bezler, who initially offered

five hostages for her exchange, claimed she is the wife of one of his men.

Budik, however, claimed it’s not so.

“Her husband died 13 years

ago,” he said. “She is apparently one of the leaders, inspirers and curators of

all this movement Novorossiya. She was preparing plan of all this. She is

political technologist and high-ranking FSB officer.”

Budik believes it was hard for

Poroshenko to agree to release Kulygina. The negotiations were led by retired

General Colonel Volodymyr Ruban.

When negotiations broke down,

Bezler staged a mock execution of Budik and two other hostages. “We were told

to fall down nicely. If we didn’t do this, they were promising to kill us for

real,” Budik said.

Bezler

Budik said he had numerous

conversations with Bezler, who he describes as a man of extremes.

“On one side he could feed you

with red caviar, to sit and cry about the killed, but on the other side he

could shoot you easy,” he said. “Human life meant nothing for him.”

Igor Bezler

Bezler, an agent of the GRU

Russian military intelligence agency, described executions as sending the

victims “to the country of sunshine.”

He imposed strict order in

Horlivka. Drunks were severely punished. Those accused of looting were killed.

So no one dared to rob banks

or ATMs, and the local mayor, after being found guilty of embezzlement, was

forced to give the money back. It was used to repair roads.

But Bezler was disappointed

that most residents in the Donetsk Oblast city of 250,000 didn’t support his

ideas.

Bezler didn’t believe in the

separatist Donetsk People’s Republic, despised the other rebel commanders and hated

the Cossack fighters, accusing them of killing his friend. So any captive

Cossack was inevitably executed. The captured members of Ukrainian volunteer

battalions were also killed after torture. The captured Ukrainian soldiers were

treated as prisoners of war and kept in better condition than the civilians.

Freedom

Budik briefly recounts his

release.

He said Ruban, the retired

general colonel who brokered the deal, “came unarmed along with his son to

Horlivka bringing Olga. We got into four cars and drove to Chuhuyiv (a city in

Kharkiv Oblast). The president sent a plane for us there,” he said.

Budik felt no emotion at the

time but drank whiskey with released Swedish guy. It was a sad day. His wife,

Natalia, said Horlivka was heavily shelled in the fighting and a close friend

of the family was captured.

Now Budik is trying to assist

Ruban in securing the release of more hostages.

He said that, in the last days

of his captivity, the Kremlin-backed insurgents, seemed to realize that their

seizure of the city was doomed. He also knew that Bezler left the city.

Budik plans to go back to

Horlivka when it is safer. “This is my home. Of course it will be a lot of work

to reconstruct it all, but I will definitely return there,” he said.

Kyiv Post staff

writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at grytsenko@kyivpost.com