The Velykooleksandrivskyi District Court found 48-year-old Igor Ruban, the head of the local poultry farm from the village of Olhivka of the Tyahynska rural community in Beryslav district, guilty of collaborationist activity.
This was reported by “IRS-South”.
According to the investigation, in 2022 Ruban headed an illegally created occupation administration of the village, cooperated with Russian forces, betrayed fellow villagers, organized a so-called referendum and campaigned for participation in it. In November 2022, after the village was liberated by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, he left Beryslav district.
Witnesses said that Ruban demanded that local officials and employees hand over the keys to administrative buildings and the boarding school, threatened people and billeted Russian soldiers in residents’ homes.
“Igor Ruban came to me with Russian soldiers; they demanded that I open the kindergarten. I refused… Ruban said the kindergarten would open in a month anyway,” one of the witnesses told the court.
He also seized musical equipment from the local cultural center, restricted access to Ukrainian media and issued passes for travel through the occupied Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant.
The court found Igor Ruban guilty under Part 5 of Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and sentenced him in absentia to ten years in prison with confiscation of all property, including vehicles and a residential house with a land plot of 1,700 sq. m.
Additionally, for 15 years after serving his sentence, Ruban is prohibited from holding positions in government bodies and from engaging in public services.
According to journalists, his wife, Natalya Ruban, also collaborated with the occupiers; until 2020 she was a deputy of the Olhivka village council and worked as an inspector at the «Nyzhniodniprovskyi» National Nature Park.