Yury Matveyev, the ‘dog food’ major and whistleblower, started more court proceedings today as a Vladivostok court session opened libel proceedings against him.
Matveyev remains defiant as the court cases stack up, a criminal case got under way on Tuesday at which Matveyev faces charges of assaulting one of his soldiers.
A civil suit which got under way on Friday refutes his Youtube claims that soldiers were fed dog food as corruption was given free rein at a military base in Russia’s far east.
Plaintiffs want Matveyev to apologize and withdraw his claims, Alexei Borovitsky, head of the Eastern Regional Command of Internal Troops of Russia press service, told RIA Novosti. Borovitsky says that three audits have shown that soldiers were not fed pet food.
This flies in the face of another investigation which confirmed many of Matveyev’s allegations but said that they had happened a long time beforehand, that they had been dealt with, and that proceedings were already underway.
An audit in April uncovered $1 million of stolen food at a warehouse in the region, including the tinned beef which was allegedly swapped with dog food.
Matveyev is not giving an inch. “I will not deny what I said and intend to prove the truth of what I said in court,” he told journalists before the court convened in Vladivostok’s Sovetsky district.
The embattled major is already fending off accusations that he kicked a warrant officer in the face as he did press-ups, after he had summoned him to his office.
Matveyev says that witnesses lined up against him had been encouraged with a mixture of threats and inducments and that one of his own witnesses had been intimidated and beaten.
