According to the publication “News of Donbass”, the man is now being held in the detention center of the occupied Mariupol in Donetsk region. He is accused of “high treason” and “illegal trafficking of radioactive substances”.
“The father faces from 20 years in prison, although he is a civilian. I believe that the charges are based only on the fact that he worked in Chernobyl before the full-scale invasion. He was a foreman of the decontamination department of transport and personal protective equipment at the State Specialized Enterprise “Central Management and Processing of Radioactive Waste”. They could also learn about his pro-Ukrainian position, because he lived in the village of Novotroitske, where almost everyone knows each other,” – said the man’s daughter.
Leonid stayed in the occupied territory to take care of his mother in Novotroitske. She hasn’t walked for years. After the start of the full-scale Russia-Ukrainian war, he tried to work as a cab driver. Was forced to get a Russian passport, but later he had already been arrested.
His relatives from Novotroitske informed us in May 2024 that dad went missing. They even filed a wanted application. But last December the police came to them and told them to withdraw their application. They were told that father had been arrested back in May in the occupied Berdyansk, where he was taking some regular passenger. Then the relatives had already told us what had happened. He was allowed to call his relatives once. He said that he was alive, that he was not guilty of anything,” – the girl added.
Unfortunately, the man’s family is unable to find a lawyer, and he is defended by an appointed attorney who even “did not object to the extension of the arrest.”
“I believe that my father is just another victim of the ‘import substitution’ campaign that continues in the occupied territories. The occupiers are “clearing” these territories of local residents so that there would be a place to live for themselves and those they brought with them. My father and I talked about this too. He said that he had been observing this trend for a long time,” summarized Leonid Malik’s daughter.