In March-April members of the Ukrainian Helsinki group O. Berdnik, Olga Meshko, M. Matusevich, M. Marinovich L. Lukyanenko, I. Kandyba and P. Vins were summoned for interrogation in connection with the case of Rudenko and Tikhy (CCE 44), who are charged with “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda”. Matusevich and Marinovich were interrogated in Kiev. The others were summoned to Donetsk. Meshko and Vins did not go to their interrogations.
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In mid-March Deputy Procurator of the Ukrainian SSR Samayev had a talk with Berdnik in Kiev. Samayev told Berdnik: “We ourselves have nothing against your group. We respect you personally. However, Rudenko and Tikhy have taken part in all sorts of things under cover of the group. They were connected through Sakharov with anti-Soviet centres.”
At the end of March Berdnik was summoned to Donetsk for interrogation. He did not go. In mid-April he was seized on the street in Kiev and taken to Donetsk. There he was released after interrogation.
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Lukyanenko was questioned, during an interrogation, about the work of the Ukrainian Helsinki group and about V. Turchin’s book The Inertia of Fear: Socialism and Totalitarianism (CCE 42). The investigator did not believe Lukyanenko when he said that he had never seen this book and continued to ask where it was.
Turchin’s book was also asked about at other interrogations.
I. Kandyba was asked questions about his visit to Moscow in January 1976, when he came out of camp. He was asked in particular whether M. Landa had written down what he had to recount about the camp.
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It was suggested to Matusevich and Marinovich during interrogations that they should cooperate with the KGB.
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In connection with the Rudenko-Tikhy case Raisa Rudenko, M. Matusevich’s father, Nadezhda Svetlichnaya, Kuzma Matviyuk, Valentina Barladyanu, Leonid and Valentina Sery, the doctor A. F. Demchenko, poet Boris Dzyuba, Candidate of chemical sciences Vasilega, Ivan Kaplun, Victor Borovsky and Vladimir Danileiko were also interrogated in the Ukraine.
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N. Svetlichnaya was sacked after her interrogation (she worked as a concierge, CCE 44).
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During interrogations, the investigators said that Rudenko and Tikhy were spies; that Rudenko was a good man but had fallen under the influence of Sakharov; and that Rudenko had repented.
One of the investigators said: “This time we won’t miss the mark the way we did in 1972 [Note 39] — this time your lot won’t recover!”
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On 29 March in Moscow, in connection with the same case, investigator Tsimokh interrogated member of the Initiative Group T. Velikanova and on 5 April chairman of the Soviet group of Amnesty International V. Turchin. Both Velikanova and Turchin refused to give evidence.
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The investigators are referring in their questions to the evidence of M. Rudenko.
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Investigator Nagovitsyn, who is in charge of the Rudenko case, told Rudenko’s wife Raisa Rudenko that the pre-trial investigation would finish in May.
On 28 March P. Vins and M. Marinovich, who were returning from Tarusa, were detained in Serpukhov and it was demanded that they should allow themselves to be searched. After several hours of attempted persuasion, they were searched forcibly. Letters by member of the Ukrainian Helsinki group N. Strokatova and by K. Lyubarsky were taken from them.
A Chronicle of Current Events 