In the Chernivtsi region, a deputy of the Sokyrian city council is suspected of having, while intoxicated, killed a 43-year-old woman who was walking with a bicycle on the side of the road.
He fled the scene of the accident. Only thanks to video surveillance cameras was it possible to establish the identity of the offender.
“Your daughter died, come”
The tragedy occurred on the evening of March 29. 43-year-old Victoria Luginich was returning home from work to the village of Kobolchin. She sewed backpacks for the military in one of the workshops in Sokiryany. I was a little late that day because I wanted to finish my work.
“She was very responsible, and she liked the work itself. At first she worked in another place, where they also sewed military uniforms. Then I moved to Sokiryany because it was closer to home. At 19:00 I started to worry, I called her, but no one answered. I told my wife that I would take the car and go pick her up. But soon a phone call came from her number. I thought my daughter, I said: “Victoria, why aren’t you answering, we’re worried.” I hear a man’s voice telling me that “your daughter died, she was hit by a car, come,” recalls Victoria’s 75-year-old father Vasily Luginich with tears.
The man says that he was able to get to the scene of the accident. He saw a body lying in a pool of blood, but the police did not let him through. The bicycle neatly stood about 30 meters from her in a ditch.
“She walked along the side of the road towards the traffic, as expected. If she was hit by a car, then the bicycle should have been nearby. Who carried it there? – the father is surprised.
He says that experts arrived and took measurements. And late at night he himself took his daughter’s body to the morgue.
“I can’t forgive you”
The driver was identified from CCTV cameras. It turned out to be 35-year-old member of the Sokirnyansky City Council, Roman Martynyuk, who was driving an Audi A6. According to the Chernivtsi region police, the man was drunk.
As Tamara Dudnik, a relative of the deceased, said, Victoria had broken legs and was bleeding. But the deputy, according to her, did not even call either an ambulance or the police to the scene of the accident.
Deputy Roman Martynyuk is the owner of Simstroyinvest LLC, which is engaged in construction. He also runs the Tatiana Martynyuk Charitable Foundation “Facing the Truth.”
For 2021, Martynyuk registered profit from business in the amount of 5 million 611 thousand UAH. He also has 2 million 350 thousand UAH in cash. However, in this declaration he no longer indicated his wife, son, or daughter.
In the declaration for 2020, the wife and children are listed. Neither the property nor the car are listed in any of the declarations.
His wife Tatyana is also a deputy of this city council. In 2020 and 2022, Tatyana Martynyuk indicated in her declaration that she works as deputy head of the Sokiryansk State Tax Inspectorate of the State Tax Service in the Chernivtsi region. She also does not have information about real estate and a car. In 2021, she indicated family members: husband Roman Martynyuk and two children.
She also did not provide information about family members in her 2022 declaration. But she indicated financial assets in the amount of 2 million 350 thousand and 100 thousand UAH in cash.
According to the father of the deceased Victoria, the wife of the perpetrator of the accident and his mother came to his daughter’s funeral.
“They asked for forgiveness, but I told them that I couldn’t forgive, he took the life of my daughter. I kicked them out. In the church, during the farewell, the mother was still trying to approach her daughter’s coffin, I also kicked her out,” says Vasily Filippovich.
The police opened criminal proceedings under Part 3 of Art. 286-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine - violation of road safety rules by a person driving a vehicle while intoxicated, which led to the death of the victim (the culprit faces from 5 to 10 years in prison), as well as under Part 3 of Art. 135 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine – leaving in danger resulting in death (the culprit faces from 3 to 8 years in prison). The deputy was arrested without bail.
