Volodymyr Ivanovych Rybak

Volodymyr Ivanovych Rybak (; 30 November 1971 – 17 April 2014) was a Ukrainian politician, member of the Horlivka city council, kidnapped and then murdered by the pro-Russian militia on 17 April 2014. It was one of the first war crimes to have been committed by Russian forces during the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Biography Rybak was born in the city of Horlivka in 1971. In 1995 he graduated from the Automobile Highway Institute of the Donetsk National Technical University and in 2002 from the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management.

From 1995 to 2009, Rybak worked in the division of Criminal Investigation for the Horlivka city police. During the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election, as a Batkivshchyna candidate, he ran for the Ukrainian parliament at the 41st electoral district (the Budonivskyi District of Donetsk) placing 4th with 5,195 votes (4.55%, winner of the Party of Regions won the district with 80.85% of the votes).

Rybak was an active supporter of the 2013–2014 Euromaidan protest. Later his body with signs of torture was found in the Torets River, along with other two bodies.

In May 2020 Igor Strelkov, a key organizer of the Donetsk People's Republic's militant groups confessed in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Gordon that he bore some responsibility for the killing of Rybak: "Naturally, Rybak, as a person who actively opposed the "militias", was an enemy in my eyes. And his death, probably, is to some extent also under my responsibility".

Awards

Hero of Ukraine with the Order of the Golden Star (February 20, 2015, posthumously)