Kirill Stremousov

Following his arrival in Kherson, Stremousov founded the media company "Tavria TV" in 2009.[4][7] Journalist Sonia Lukashova of Ukrainska Pravda later said that the company could "hardly be called journalistic", and that Stremousov used it as a vehicle for PR and promoting his own ideology.[6] Around the same time, he joined a local branch of Christian Democratic Union, a Ukrainian political party.[7]

In the night of June 14, 2009, Stremousov was beaten up in Kherson by three men wearing camouflage uniforms after he filmed a traffic accident involving a private security agency. After beating him, the men took his phone and deleted the recordings he had made. Stremousov suffered a broken arm as a result.[8][4][9] Stremousov claimed that he tried to get help from police as the assault was taking place, but they turned a blind eye to the assault.[8]

In 2011, he traveled to the United States on a work visa to conduct research for a book.[7][9] He worked as a laborer in Chicago for some time.[7] Since he was already in the Americas, he decided to go on a motorbike trip across Latin America, retracing the footsteps of his "hero", the Argentinian Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara.[9][3] He described the trip as an "epic journey in search of himself" that transformed his life.[3]

Upon his return from America, Stremousov became a prolific blogger, described by the Guardian as a "petty troublemaker" who "propagand[ized] some of the many conspiracy theories that had sprung up in the post-Soviet sphere", and a "marginal figure" in politics.[3]

He conducted seminars on a mystical approach to a healthy lifestyle and became a follower of the post-Soviet neo-Pagan and neo-Stalinist conspiracy theory Concept of Public Security (Russian: Концепция общественной безопасности).[4] One of the goals of the group was the establishment of a "unified East Slavic state".[10] The conspiracy theory has also been described by the Guardian as having "strong antisemitic undertones".[3]

In September 2013,[11] Stremousov was one of the organizers of the "Russian runs", which were to show Kherson the "strength of the Russian spirit".[4] The event began in the morning of September 21.[11] Participants in the event displayed flags of far-right Russian nationalist groups[10][12] and called for a revival of the Russian Empire.[13]

In December 2013, he founded the organization "For the President", which provided explicit support to the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych amid the Revolution of Dignity that would eventually unseat Yanukovych.[4][5] Later on in the revolution, on March 1, 2014, Stremousov organized a pro-Russian rally in Kherson, allegedly declaring his intention to seize administrative buildings and establish a pro-Russian "Kherson People's Republic" similar to those established in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine.[12][10]

According to local Kherson media outlet MOST, after the end of the revolution, he "disappeared for a year and a half" before resuming his activities.[14] On 28 January 2016,[15] he co-founded the Ukrainian Center for Environmental Self-Defense alongside Yuri Kleynos,[4] a Ukrainian man who would later be charged with treason by the Ukrainian government for organizing pickets in Rivne in 2017 calling for the creation of a secessionist "Rivne People's Republic".[4][16]

On 7 February 2017, Stremousov and five other men entered the office of Volodymyr Mykolayenko, the then-mayor of Kherson. They forcibly dragged Mykolayenko out of the building and threw him onto the sidewalk, filming the incident themselves. In the recorded video, Stremousov said his intention was to "teach a lesson" to the mayor and force him to clear the streets of ice.[9][17] Civic activist Roman Tsviakh recalled years later that before the incident, several residents had fallen and broken bones due to the ice, and that by the next day, "the sidewalks were covered in salt".[18] The same month, on 22 February, Stremousov beat a police officer during a scuffle in the Kherson city council building, knocking the man to the floor and kicking him.[9][19][20][21]

On 6 April 2018 he led an attack on a convoy of Security Service of Ukraine in Kherson, attempting to break out Sergei Osminin, a Yevpatoria city council member who had participated in the 2014 annexation of Crimea.[22][23] In May 2018, Stremousov broke into a paid beach, and when a security guard attempted to remove him, he attacked the guard. After the guard sprayed him with a gas canister, Stremousov shot a man with a traumatic pistol (a non-lethal weapon), streaming the incident live on Facebook.[24][6]

On 8 October 2018, he was named the head of the Kherson branch of the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU).[5] On 18 January 2019, he was part of a group that fired at the Novy Den newspaper in Kherson.[5][25] In January 2019, Stremousov was arrested and charged with hooliganism for his involvement in the attack.[26][27] He was also expelled from the SPU, likely for the same reason.[5] In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election he was a candidate for the People's Deputy of Ukraine as a self-nominated candidate in the 82nd constituency, receiving 1.74% of the vote.[5]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Stremousov started promoting anti-vaccination beliefs and conspiracy theories.[5][3] In his videos he accused the authorities of spreading COVID-19, spoke about "US biolabs in Ukraine", and urged residents not to wear masks and not to adhere to restrictions.[28][29] His YouTube channel was eventually blocked for spreading COVID misinformation.[9][30] He and his supporters also broke into hospitals and threatened doctors.[31] On September 29, 2020, he spoke at an anti-COVID restriction rally called "Stop Quarantine; Stop Genocide!"[lower-alpha 1] in front of the building of the Government of Ukraine.[30]

On 18 June 2020, he attacked journalist Dmytro Bagnenko and was involved in a criminal case under the article on obstruction of the journalist's work. In August 2020, the SBU conducted searches of Stremousov's properties as part of criminal proceedings to expose the Russian FSB.[5]

On 9 November 2020, the Commission on Journalistic Ethics (CJE) of Ukraine reprimanded Stremousov for what they described as mass distribution of press cards for political purposes. In a statement, they said that his behavior resembled "personal PR" more closely than it did "the work of a news agency."[9][32] Stremousov did not change his behavior, and continued issuing press cards to his followers throughout 2021, encouraging them to become "Stremousov journalists".[9]

In the 2020 local elections he unsuccessfully ran for the post of mayor of Kherson as a self-nominated candidate,[33] receiving just over 1% of the vote.[3] Stremousov became a member of the pro-Russian Derzhava party in 2021.[7][34]

President Vladimir Putin posthumously awarded Stremousov the Order of Courage.[59] The Russia-backed administration of the Kherson Oblast promised to name a street after Stremousov in the city of Kherson and erect a statue to commemorate his life.[60] In a post on the Telegram messaging app, Sergey Aksyonov, head of the Russia-annexed Crimea Peninsula, called Stremousov a “true fighter” and a “Russian patriot”.[61]

Ukrainian legislator Oleksiy Honcharenko called Stremousov "a traitor who went over to the side of Russia," noting, "He actively opposed the surrender of Kherson and said that Russia is here forever. And then he mysteriously dies."[61]

On 18 October 2023 a court in Odesa found Stremousov guilty of treason and collaboration and he was sentenced to life imprisonment with confiscation of property.[62] This conviction was possible because the Ukrainian special services had been unable to officially confirm the death of Stremousov.[62]