LES IV, Yaroslav Born 1945 Physical education instructor Ivano-Frankivsk oblast A new member of the Ukrainian Group who joined in the late summer of 1979, Lesiv was sentenced in 1967 to 6 years in camp and 5 years in internal exile for his membership in the Ukrainian National Front. Recently returned from exile, Lesiv, who is partially blind, lives and works in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. In mid-November of 1979, Lesiv was arrested, reportedly for possession of narcotics, Article 224 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, a crime punishable by up to 10 years deprivation of freedom. After serving for five years in the Red Army, Lukyanenko graduated from the Law Faculty of Moscow State University in 1957. From 1958-1960, he worked as a lawyer in L'vov. He became a member of the Communist Party and in 1960 served as a propagandist in L'vov's district party committee. Along with Kandyba, Lukyanenko belonged to the clandestine Ukrainian Workers' and Peasants' Union. In 1961, he was sentenced to be shot as a traitor for his activities in the Union, but his sentence was commuted to 15 years of imprisonment. He served out his sentence in corrective labor colonies and spent 4 and 1/2 years in the notorious Vladimir Prison. In 1974, Lukyanenko was taken to a psychiatric insitute for convicted prisoners in Ryabinsk for a two-month period. He was released from Vladimir in 1976. As a result of his lengthy imprisonment, Lukyanenko suffers from chronic stomach ailments. On August 24, 1977, he renounced his Soviet citizenship and expressed a desire to emigrate, underscoring the discriminatory practice of denying ethnic Ukrainians the right to leave the USSR. On December 12, 1977 in Chernihiv, Lukyanenko was arrested because of his activities in the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. He was convicted of "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda", (Article 62 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code) and sentenced on July 20, 1978, to 10 years in special regimen camp (the harshest category of camps) and 5 years of internal exile. Lytvyn served a ten year prison sentence from 1955 to 1965 for his participation in the Ukrainian nationalist movement. He was arrested again in November of 1974 and then sentenced to 3 years in strict regimen camp for "slandering the Soviet state." (Article 187 of the Ukrainian Code.) During his incarceration, he was operated on for a perforated ulcer and now suffers from peritonitis, a pelvic disorder. After returning to the village of Barakty to live with his young son at the end of 1977, Lytvyn began working with the Ukrainian Helsinki Group. Like other Group members, he was subject to a house search and other forms of official harassment throughout the spring and summer of 1979. Lytvyn joined the Group in 1979. August 6, 1979, he was arrested. Just a few months later on The exact charges are unknown, but presumably he will be accused of "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda." |