Ukraine’s opposition accuses government of allowing Russia to kidnap anti-Kremlin activist

**Xenomorph** · 10-26-2012, 05:45 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...bc7_story.html

KIEV, Ukraine — Ukraine let Russian agents kidnap an anti-Kremlin activist seeking asylum in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev and forcibly bring him back to Moscow, the main opposition party charged Thursday.

The party led by jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko claims that President Viktor Yanukovych sanctioned the abduction of Leonid Razvozzhayev in order to secure the Kremlin’s backing for Sunday’s parliamentary election in Ukraine.

“The special services of a foreign state are operating on Ukraine’s territory,” said Tymoshenko ally Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Yanukovych, who visited Moscow earlier this week, has been courting the Kremlin to seek a rebate on Russian natural gas supplies. A lower gas price is essential to keep the struggling Ukrainian economy afloat and would secure public support for Yanukovych and his party.

Razvozzhayev, a 39-year-old Russian opposition activist, had come to Kiev last week to seek political asylum in Ukraine after Russian investigators accused him of being involved in plotting anti-government riots.

Razvozzhayev told Russian human rights defenders who visited him in a Moscow jail that he was kidnapped on a Kiev street by masked men who smuggled him into Russia. He said they kept him in handcuffs and leg chains in a basement for three days, denying him food, water, sleep or use of a toilet. He also said they threatened to kill his children until he “confessed” to plotting riots.