#2
BBC
February 12, 2015
The untold story of the Maidan massacre
Gabriel Gatehouse
By Gabriel Gatehouse
BBC News
[Graphics here http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31359021]

A day of bloodshed on Kiev's main square, nearly a year ago, marked the end of a winter of protest against the government of president Viktor Yanukovych, who soon afterwards fled the country. More than 50 protesters and three policemen died. But how did the shooting begin? Protest organisers have always denied any involvement - but one man told the BBC a different story.

It's early in the morning, 20 February, 2014. Kiev's Maidan square is divided - on one side the riot police, the protesters on the other.

This has been going on for more than two months now. But events are about to come to a head. By the end of the day, more than 50 people will be dead, many of them gunned down in the street by security forces.

The violence will lead to the downfall of Ukraine's pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Moscow will call 20 February an armed coup, and use it to justify the annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in Eastern Ukraine.

The protest leaders, some of whom now hold positions of power in the new Ukraine, insist full responsibility for the shootings lies with the security forces, acting on behalf of the previous government.

But one year on, some witnesses are beginning to paint a different picture.

"I didn't shoot to kill"

"I was shooting downwards at their feet," says a man we will call Sergei, who tells me he took up position in the Kiev Conservatory, a music academy on the south-west corner of the square.

"Of course, I could have hit them in the arm or anywhere. But I didn't shoot to kill."

Sergei says he had been a regular protester on the Maidan for more than a month, and that his shots at police on the square and on the roof of an underground shopping mall, caused them to retreat.

There had been shooting two days earlier, on 18 February. The 19th, a Wednesday, had been quieter, but in the evening, Sergei says, he was put in contact with a man who offered him two guns: one a 12-gauge shotgun, the other a hunting rifle, a Saiga that fired high-velocity rounds.

He chose the latter, he says, and stashed it in the Post Office building, a few yards from the Conservatory. Both buildings were under the control of the protesters.

Under attack, the police retreated from their position near the front line in the square, falling back along the street on the north side of Hotel Ukraine.

Protesters then advanced towards the police, where they were shot by retreating security forces and snipers from surrounding buildings.

More than 50 people were killed, the heaviest death toll of the clashes between protesters and security forces in the Maidan.

When the shooting started early on the morning of the 20th, Sergei says, he was escorted to the Conservatory, and spent some 20 minutes before 07:00 firing on police, alongside a second gunman.

His account is partially corroborated by other witnesses. That morning, Andriy Shevchenko, then an opposition MP and part of the Maidan movement, had received a phone call from the head of the riot police on the square.

"He calls me and says, 'Andriy, somebody is shooting at my guys.' And he said that the shooting was from the Conservatory."

Shevchenko contacted the man in charge of security for the protesters, Andriy Parubiy, known as the Commandant of the Maidan.

"I sent a group of my best men to go through the entire Conservatory building and determine whether there were any firing positions," Parubiy says.

Meanwhile the MP, Andriy Shevchenko, was getting increasingly panicked phone calls.

"I kept getting calls from the police officer, who said: 'I have three people wounded, I have five people wounded, I have one person dead.' And at some point he says, 'I am pulling out.' And he says, 'Andriy I do not know what will be next.' But I clearly felt that something really bad was about to happen."

Andriy Parubiy, now deputy speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, says his men found no gunmen in the Conservatory building.

But a photographer who gained access to the Conservatory later in the morning - shortly after 08:00 - took pictures there of men with guns, although he did not see them fire.

Sergei's account also differs from Parubiy's.

"I was just reloading," he told me. "They ran up to me and one put his foot on top of me, and said, 'They want a word with you, everything is OK, but stop doing what you're doing.'"

Sergei says he is convinced the men who dragged him away were from Parubiy's security unit, though he didn't recognise their faces. He was escorted out of the Conservatory building, taken out of Kiev by car, and left to make his own way home.

By that time three policemen had been fatally wounded and the mass killings of protesters had begun.

Kiev's official investigation has focused on what happened afterwards - after the riot police began to retreat from the square. In video footage, they are clearly seen firing towards protesters as they pull back.

Only three people have been arrested, all of them members of a special unit of riot police. And of these three, only two - the lower-ranking officers - remain in custody. The unit's commanding officer, Dmitry Sadovnik, was granted bail and has now disappeared.

The three policemen are accused of causing 39 deaths. But at least a further dozen protestors were killed - and the three policemen who died of their wounds.

Some of the dead were almost certainly shot by snipers, who seemed to be shooting from some of the taller buildings surrounding the square.

Lawyers for the victims and sources in the general prosecutor's office have told the BBC that when it comes to investigating deaths that could not have been caused by the riot police, they have found their efforts blocked by the courts.

"If you think of Yanukovych's time, it was like a Bermuda triangle: the prosecutor's office, the police and the courts," says Andriy Shevchenko. "Everyone knew that they co-operated, they covered each other and that was the basis of the massive corruption in the country. Those connections still exists."

Ukraine's Prosecutor General, Vitaly Yarema, was dismissed this week, amid harsh criticism of his handling of the investigation.

Meanwhile, conspiracy theories flourish.

"I'm certain that the shootings of the 20th were carried out by snipers who arrived from Russia and who were controlled by Russia," says Andriy Parubiy, the former Commandant of the Maidan.

"The shooters were aiming to orchestrate a bloodbath on Maidan."

This is a widely-held belief in Ukraine. In Russia, many believe the opposite - that the revolt on Maidan was a Western conspiracy, a CIA-inspired coup designed to pull Ukraine out of Moscow's orbit. Neither side offers convincing evidence for its assertion.

The overwhelming majority of the protesters on Maidan were peaceful, unarmed citizens, who braved months of bitter cold to demand a change to their corrupt government. As far as is known, all the protesters killed on 20 February were unarmed.

The leaders of the Maidan have always maintained they did their best to keep guns away from the square.

"We knew that our strength was not to use force, and our weakness would be if we start shooting," says Andriy Shevchenko.

Parubiy says it is possible that a handful of protesters with weapons may have come to the Maidan as part of a spontaneous, unorganised response to violence from the security forces in the days running up to 20 February.

"I did hear that, after the shootings on 18 February, there were guys who came to Maidan with hunting rifles. I was told that sometimes they were the relatives or parents of those people who were killed on the 18th. So I concede that it's possible there were people with hunting rifles on Maidan. When the snipers began to kill our guys, one after another, I can imagine that those with the hunting rifles returned fire."

Sergei, again, tells a different story. He says he was recruited as a potential shooter in late-January, by a man he describes only as a retired military officer. Sergei himself was a former soldier.

"We got chatting, and he took me under his wing. He saw something in me that he liked. Officers are like psychologists, they can see who is capable. He kept me close."

The former officer dissuaded him from joining any of the more militant groups active on the Maidan.

"'Your time will come,' he said."

Was he being prepared, psychologically, to take up arms?

"Not that we sat down and worked out a plan. But we talked about it privately and he prepared me for it."

It is not clear who the man who apparently recruited Sergei was, or whether he belonged to any of the recognised groups active on the Maidan.

And there is much else that we still do not know, such as who fired the first shots on 20 February.

As for conspiracy theories, it is possible that Sergei was manipulated, played like a pawn in a bigger game. But that is not the way he sees it. He was a simple protester, he says, who took up arms in self-defence.

"I didn't want to shoot anyone or kill anyone. But that was the situation. I don't feel like some kind of hero. The opposite: I have trouble sleeping, bad premonitions. I'm trying to control myself. But I just get nervous all the time. I have nothing to be proud of. It's easy to shoot. Living afterwards, that's the hard thing. But you have to defend your country."

You can watch a longer video report by Gabriel Gatehouse here [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31435719] and listen to a radio documentary here [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02jcrf3].

[return to Contents] 

 
#3
Facebook
May 9, 2015
Maidan Snipers
By Ivan Katchanovski
[https://www.facebook.com/ivan.katchanovski?fref=nf]
Ivan Katchanovski teaches at the School of Political Studies and the Department of Communication at the University of Ottawa. He was Visiting Scholar at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Politics at the State University of New York at Potsdam, Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto, and Kluge Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. He received his Ph.D. from the School of Public Policy at George Mason University.
 
A new video provides a direct evidence of shooters killing an entire group of Maidan protesters from the Hotel Ukraina. It corroborates other evidence mentioned in my study, such as eyewitness reports, directions of entry wounds, and bullet trajectories. The video shows that its maker and some other protesters noticed the shots from the hotel at the direction of the protesters. He zoomed to specific open windows on the 12th and 9th floor of the hotel, but then had to flee under a cover of threes after a bullet hit a metal pole near him. The video was uploaded to YouTube more than a year after the massacre. But this crucial new evidence is deliberately ignored by the Ukrainian media and official investigation, even though they aware about this video, because it was recently posted in Nebesna sotnia, Maidan samooborona (Maidan Self-Defence), and Pravyi sektor (Right Sector) Facebook groups. It is noteworthy that the crucial video was also ignored by Maidan Self-Defence and the Right Sector, whose leadership and covert armed groups of "snipers" were linked to this massacre of both the police and the protesters.  

During the first minute and a half of this video, which was filmed from 9:28am till 9:32am, at least six protesters were killed and many other wounded in the same area near Zhovtnevyi Palace. Three other protesters were killed there within three minutes prior, and another protester within a minute after the end of the video. The video shows that Ihor Kostenko was killed in the rear of the advancing protesters at 9:28am, and it zooms on large caliber pellets near the place of his killing a minute afterwards. He reportedly had more than one entry wound, specifically to his head and to the legs. This is consistent with use of hunting shotguns with large caliber pellets by the Maidan shooters, specifically at the Hotel Ukraina. In spite of its importance, the mainstream media in the West would likely not report this crucial new piece of evidence pointing to actual Maidan "snipers" who massacred their fellow protesters as a part of the organized violent overthrow of the government.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVXLbkJsX0
233 Киев. Институтская. 20.02.2014

Ivan Katchanovski: The fourth video by the Polish TV shows that a protester was pushing other protesters at 9:25am to this massacre area within a minute after Serhii Baidovsky from the Volyn Region was killed and Oleh Sukhinsky was wounded there. In his interview, Sukhynsky said that he saw that he was being shot from the Hotel Ukraina. His wound on the right thigh coincided with the position of advancing protesters and the shot from the direction of the hotel. He can be seen in the Polish TV video in a lilac cover when he was carried away at 9:26am to the same Hotel Ukraina from which he was shot. Several other wounded protesters were carried out. The Polish video ends at 9:27:26am during the height of the massacre at that location. The TV reporter on the ground and his cameraman for some reason omitted the shooters from the Hotel Ukraina in front of them. http://
http://www.tvn24.pl/wiadomosci-ze-swiata,2/najwazniejsze-wideo-z-majdanu-ostatniego-tygodnia,400776.html

Ivan Katchanovski: The new video shows at 9:29:47am a part of the wall of Zhovtnevyi Palace after it was hit, likely by pellets, barely missing a group of the protesters. One of the protesters asked if they were shooting from the Hotel Ukraina. A ballistic trajectory from the impacted wall points to the same 12th floor identified as one of the locations of "snipers" during earlier shooting in the same video. This is the photo of the same wall area. http://radiokoteg.kiev.ua/MAIDAN/MAIDAN_018/P3070195.JPG

Ivan Katchanovski: The lights indicate the ballistic trajectory from that location. http://radiokoteg.kiev.ua/MAIDAN/MAIDAN_018/P3070196.JPG
 
Ivan Katchanovski: Serhii Bondarchuk was killed in his back in the same area within 20 seconds before or after this time when he carried one of the protesters near the main entrance to Zhovtnevyi Palace. His son stated based on evidence that he collected that his father was killed in the back from the Hotel Ukraina. His story was featured in the Reuters report concerning the government investigation of the Maidan massacre, but the location of the shooters in the hotel was not mentioned in this story. The arrested Berkut members are charged with killing Bondarchuk. http://www.reuters.com/.../us-ukraine-killings-probe...
    Special Report: Flaws found in Ukraine's probe of Maidan massacre
    KIEV (Reuters) - For millions of Ukrainians, it was a...
    REUTERS.COM|BY BY STEVE STECKLOW AND OLEKSANDR AKYMENKO
   
A member of the "Vikings" neo-Nazi group in the Right Sector during the Euromaidan publicly admitted on his VK page on May 7 that he killed two policemen on February 18, 2014 and that his associate also killed two policemen on the same day from his Nagant revolver. They both joined the far right-led battalions during the war in Donbas. This confession and other evidence of the involvement of the Right Sector in the violent overthrow of the government and in the Maidan massacre are ignored by the current government law enforcement agencies. This ignoring and various other evidence suggest that the Right Sector acted in coordination with some of the Maidan leaders.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1021916377838248&set=a.117187214977840.13788.100000596862745&type=1&theater

May 8

Ivan Katchanovski: Live reporting by 112 TV channel since 8:00am provides another evidence of Maidan shooters in the Music Conservatory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv_cSiy2O3U

Ivan Katchanovski: Another live report at 8:37am states that the shooters from the conservatory wounded at least 5 policemen on the Maidan. Both reports confirm that the Maidan shooters at the conservatory used large pellets to kill and wound the police. The Berkut and Internal Troops retreated at haste from the Maidan within about five minutes after the end of this video. These two videos are completely ignored by the media. They had about dozen views each after more than six months on Youtube when I found them. I saw other live broadcasts showing these events on the Maidan during this very time period on February 20. These recordings by the Radio Liberty and several Ukrainian TV and internet broadcasts from the Hotel Ukraina were removed immediately after the massacre on February 20 or not made public, in contrast to recordings from other days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMQ1XXAUqxk

April 29

Ivan Katchanovski: Interpol has refused a Ukrainian authorities request to put a commander of the special Berkut company and its members, who are charged with killing of 39 protesters during the Maidan massacre, on its wanted list. Interpol concluded that the prosecuted Berkut members face a political persecution in Ukraine. This is another evidence of falsification of the Maidan massacre case by the Ukrainian government. The Western media and the governments prefer to ignore such evidence and continue to propagate the official version of the massacre with no questions asked. Google News search has produced not a single English language news report by Western media about the recent Interpol refusal. The attached report looks like a Google translation of a Ukrainian news report because the name of Sadovnyk is translated as Gardener. Such a consistent pattern of behavior over a long period of time indicates that this is a deliberate policy of misrepresentation of the Maidan massacre for political reasons. The Western governments have one the best intelligence, technical, and analytical capabilities in the world, and they almost definitely know that this massacre was a false flag operation. The same concerns the Western media which has sufficient resources to investigate the massacre.
Interpol refused to declare an international arrest former commander Dmitry Berkut Gardener. [http://ukrainiancrisis.net/news/10327]
UKRAINIANCRISIS.NET

April 16, 2015

Ivan Katchanovski: In his interview, which was only published In Ukraine recently, the commander of Omega unit of the Internal Troops confirms that they had information and observed themselves that on February 20 both Maidan protesters and the police were killed and wounded from the Hotel Ukraina. He also confirms my study findings that the shooters and spotters were also stationed in the Music Conservatory, Zhovtnevyi Palace, Kinopalats, Muzeiny Lane, and other nearby buildings controlled by the Maidan. His unit observed Maidan protesters armed with hunting rifles and Kalashnikovs in these areas, and it came under live ammunition fire. The Omega commander also confirms that groups of the Maidan protesters started first using live ammunition during the "peaceful march" on February 18 and that the fire in the trade union building started on the floors controlled by the Right Sector. This crucial information was ignored by the investigation and the media in Ukraine and the West, with some exceptions. http://apostrophe.com.ua/.../obschee-mnenie-boytsov-byil.../1284

Ivan Katchanovski: The head of a Maidan Self-Defense unit confirms that the Hotel Ukraina was under control of the Maidan during the massacre on February 20 but denies that any shooters were there in spite of several videos showing the Maidan shooters in the hotel at the time of the massacre. He states that he personally and his unit members guarded the Hotel Ukraina and checked those who entered the hotel since the end of January 2014. In the beginning of the massacre, this unit commander, Maidan Self- Defense members, and Svoboda leaders and activists are seen in various videos in the lobby and at the entrances to the hotel and hotel elevators and stairs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHv-IpBRb8k

March 31, 2015

Ivan Katchanovski:  A report of the International Advisory Panel, set up by the Council of Europe, presents new evidence corroborating my study conclusions that the investigation of the "snipers' massacre" on the Maidan is deliberately and systematically falsified and stonewalled at the highest level in Ukraine, in particular by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor General office, as a part of the cover-up. This panel was tasked with assessing the government investigation, and it did not conduct its own investigation. Therefore, this report contains summary of the main findings and evidence by the Ukrainian investigation. The report reveals that contrary to the public statements, the official investigation has no evidence implicating government snipers but has evidence of "shooters" killing protesters from the Maidan-controlled Hotel Ukraina, Music Conservatory, and other buildings and that the version of Maidan shooters is not pursued. This is an important official admission which corroborates my findings of Maidan shooters killing the protesters from these locations. Such my findings were previously dismissed or ignored, and I came under various personal attacks for making such conclusion.

The government investigation determined that Berkut special company members killed the absolute majority from 49 protesters because the majority of victims were killed by 7.62x39 caliber bullets, their trajectories indicate that more than 30 protesters were killed from the Berkut barricade, and because videos show the Berkut members shooting from similar caliber Kalashnikov rifles from this barricade. This conclusion means that the investigation deliberately ignores videos and eyewitness testimonies about Maidan shooters having and firing at both the protesters and the police from the Kalashnikov assault rifles of the same caliber from the Hotel Ukraina, Zhovtnevyi Palace, and the conservatory building and a GPU's own suppressed statement about protesters being killed from the Hotel Ukraina from a Simonov carbine of the same caliber. Furthermore, the report omits official admissions by the investigators that at least 17 protesters were killed with pellets, one by a 9mm bullet from a Makarov gun, and six by other ammunition, such as hunting bullets.My study cites videos and eyewitness testimonies about Maidan shooters possessing and firing at both the protesters and the police from hunting shotguns and rifles from the hotel, conservatory and other Maidan-controlled buildings. My analysis of killings of specific protesters, specifically videos synchronized with a precision to a second, bullet trajectories, and directions of entry wounds, shows that the absolute majority of the protesters in front of the Berkut barricade were killed from the same Maidan controlled buildings, while the Berkut members shot at these buildings. But wounding or killing of some of the protesters by the Berkut cannot be completely ruled out because of the lack of specific information in a small number of cases. But such continuing suppression of the crucial information by the government of Ukraine is consistent with its deliberate cover-up of this mass killing in which far right and oligarchic parties and top government officials were involved.
https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=09000016802f038b

Ivan Katchanovski: The Council of Europe report also reveals that to date the only evidence in the government investigation of the Dmytro Bulatov's widely publicized "abduction" is his own statement. The failure by two investigations to produce any other corroborating evidence of his abduction supports a conclusion in my study that this was another false flag operation, similar to the "Maidan snipers' massacre." Absences of previously reported evidence, which was collected by the investigation and pointed to such "false flag case of violence," and testimonies of his fellow Automaidan leaders, who belatedly admitted last fall that the Bulatov's "abduction" and "crucifixion" were staged, also suggest that the Bulatov case investigations are similarly falsified for political reasons as a part of a cover-up.

"336. Mr Bulatov was one of the organisers of AutoMaidan and, on the evening of 22 January 2014, he was abducted, detained and severely ill-treated until his release on 30 January 2014.
337. There are two pending investigations: one opened on 31 January 2014 concerning his abduction and detention and, a second, opened by the PGO on 5 March 2014, concerning his ill-treatment. Given the circumstances of the crime and the events that preceded its commission, the MoI are examining a number of theories as regards his abduction, including that it was an abduction to extort a ransom from Euromaidan leaders or that it was connected to certain debt issues. However, to date the only evidence in the casefile is the statement of Mr Bulatov himself." (p. 54 of the report).

Ivan Katchanovski: The investigators deliberately ignored the Parasiuk company and other Maidan armed groups and use of hunting weapons by them. They claim that Berkut used hunting ammunition even though no guns capable of shooting pellets were seen in videos there. A lawyer representing the killed protesters says that the ballistic analyses were conducted in haste without precise measurement and without identifications of specific locations of victims and shooters and types of ammunition used.
http://antikor.com.ua/articles/20284-advokati_majdanu_sprava_1_grudnja_na_tomu_h_rivni_shcho_i_pri_pshontsi_i_zaharchenku/print

March 13, 2015

Ivan Katchanovski: In a little known ZDF video, Parasiuk is seen retrieving his armed company members from the same room of the Hotel Ukraina at 10:22am. The ZDF correspondent Britta Hilpert said that the armed protesters stopped their shooting from the ZDF hotel room when this commander came, and that he was angry and commanded the shooters to stop and move because "the press should not be drawn into it." Ruslan Koshulynsky from Svoboda is seen with this group of armed shooters in this video near the ZDF room on the 14th floor. This video was removed from the German ZDF website in the last two weeks.

Ivan Katchanovski: Volodymyr Parasiuk confirmed that his unit-which included armed protesters with experience fighting in armed conflicts-was based in the conservatory building at the time when two dozen policemen were wounded and killed by "snipers" from the conservatory and Trade Union buildings. He was the same special combat company commander who called from the Maidan stage in the evening of February 21 to reject a signed agreement, which was mediated by foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland and a representative of the Russian president. The agreement called for investigation of the Maidan massacre with international help. Parasiuk issued a public ultimatum for President Yanukovych to resign by 10:00am of the next day. He justified his ultimatum by blaming Yanukovych for the massacre, while coffins of killed protesters were carried out in front of the stage and some of the members of the Parasiuk-led company, who were seen along with him in the Hotel Ukraina during the massacre, standing in front. He stated that his combat company based in the Music Conservatory was responsible for the turning point of the Euromaidan, and threated an armed assault if Yanukovych would not resign. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6cpyRwl-ZU

Ivan Katchanovski: Another previously unreported video shows a man, who was wearing black Right Sector-style clothing and balaklava and who matches a description of a shooter reportedly captured at the Hotel Ukraina. Parasiuk and at least some other members of his group leave the hotel around 11:00-11:30am with Svoboda deputies, Maidan protesters, and journalists witnessing this man, the Parasiuk group, and a protester armed with Kalashnikov but not reporting all this. The Spilno TV broadcast and initial media reports stated around 11:00am that a "sniper" was found on the 10th floor by the Maidan Self-Defense armed with Kalashnikovs. A protester saw a similarly-dressed "sniper" being carried by Maidan Self-Defense near the Hotel Ukraina. A Spilno TV recording also contains information that a French TV crew from Itele filmed the capture of one of the shooters in the Hotel Ukraina during the massacre and interviewed him, but this video was not broadcast. The most rational explanation that this "sniper" was captured either to create a plausible deniability like in the case of the conservatory shooter or that he was captured by Maidan Self-Defense members who knew about the shooters there but were not initially aware about their allegiance. Videos show dozens of Maidan Self-Defense members in front of the Hotel Ukraina around that time. This and other videos also show Svoboda members of the parliament, such as Ruslan Koshulynsky, Oleh Pankevych, Yuri Syrotiuk, Iryna Stekh, Iryna Farion, Oleh Osiatynsky, Ihor Shvaika, and Anatolii Vitiv, witnessing the arrival and exit of members of the armed Parasiuk group or being at the first floor and near the hotel during the massacre, in some cases, such sd Koshulynsky, from its very start. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSoGsR304rk

Ivan Katchanovski: The Ukrainian media takes an active role in falsification of the Maidan massacre. One of the main TV channels recently produced Parasiuk's interview in which he said nothing about his armed company in the Hotel Ukraina but said that he was helping wounded near the hotel at the time of the massacre. http://tsn.ua/special-projects/20february/page11232/

March 3, 2015

Ivan Katchanovski: My "Snipers' Massacre" on the Maidan in Ukraine paper has been just accepted for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in San Francisco. This is the largest academic conference of both American political scientists and political scientists in the world, and the absolute majority of paper proposals are rejected following a peer review. A summary of my "snipers' massacre" study will be published in a forthcoming academic book by Canadian scholars specializing in the politics of the post-Soviet region. There is still no other academic study of this crucial case of mass killing.

February 21, 2015

Volodymyr Ishchenko: Ivan Katchanovski published significantly updated and revised version of his study on Maidan snipers' massacre on Feb 20, 2014. The new version contains substantially more significant (including recently published) evidence, in a more structured and ultimately in a much more convincing way arguing for an organized provocation by some elements among Maidan protesters including the far right. Previously we published a Ukrainian-language summary of the main points of an earlier Katchnovski's paper and some critical journalist investigations here: http://commons.com.ua/chi-spravdi-berkut-ubiv-nebesnu-sotnyu-zapitannya-bez-vidpovidej-pro-podiyi-20-lyutogo/. At the moment Katchanovski's study remains the only attempt for systematic analysis of all publicly available evidence about the snipers' massacre. It is essential for political and academic discussions about Maidan, and, to my belief, no serious analysis of February 20 events can ignore it, even if not necessarily agreeing with all Katchanovski's conclusions.

February 20, 2015

Ivan Katchanovski: I've uploaded a revised and updated draft version of my study of the "Snipers' Massacre" on the Maidan in Ukraine. This version presents a lot of previously supressed, ignored and misrepresented evidence, including videos of suspected shooters. It also analyzes circumstances of all individual cases of protesters killed during the massacre. I plan to incorporate this paper into my book on Euromaidan and the war in Ukraine. This version of the paper was also provided to major media in the US and Western Europe, specifically New York Times, because this issue has great importance not only for academic research but also to the politics of Ukraine and the international conflict over Ukraine. https://www.academia.edu/8776021/The_Snipers_Massacre_on_the_Maidan_in_Ukraine

Also: The Snipers' Massacre in Kyiv: A Response to Critics. http://www.academia.edu/9092851/The_Snipers_Massacre_in_Kyiv_A_Response_to_Critics

February 14, 2015

Ivan Katchanovski: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung finally reports that the Parasiuk's special Maidan company was armed, based in the Music Conservatory, and fired at the police in the morning of February 20th. BBC also aired stories this week about Maidan protesters shooting at the police from the conservatory building. I sent my paper containing these findings and links to publicly available sources to the Western media, including BBC, six months ago but they did not report these findings then. But even more important revelations about the massacre of protesters are still unreported by the mainstream Western media. "In an interview with Germany's establishment newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), published on February 9, Parasyuk said many in his group were armed. "A lot of lads came to us then, who said we should take up arms and attack... Many had guns with them, often hunting rifles," he was quoted as saying.

Parasyuk confirmed to FAZ that his men fired on the police, saying that this was in response to initial police fire. The police started firing over the barricades, and the protestors "defended themselves using their guns," Pararsyuk said.

Initial records of police casualties for that week show that three policemen died between 9.30am and 10.30am on February 20 from injuries sustained on Institutska. "As the first men [from the riot police] were injured, everyone stormed forwards. Everyone who was on the barricades stormed up the Institutska Street... Our boys used their weapons only once," Parasyuk said, "as they were storming [up the hill]."

According to Parasyuk, as quoted by FAZ, this was the moment that police marksmen opened fire. "They started to provide covering fire for the retreating [police units]" Parasyuk said.

According to FAZ, "The perpetrators, whoever they were, may initially have been in a sort of defensive position, but then exceeded everything that could be regarded as justified in this position. Self-defence turned into cold, indiscriminate killing," FAZ reports.

A source staying in the Ukraina hotel overlooking the Maidan and Institutska also told bne IntelliNews of an opposition rifleman demanding entry to guest rooms and then firing from the window.

Parasyuk's role in the events of February 20, 2014 has largely remained unknown until now. It was only the following day, on February 21 that he made his name with a dramatic public debut.

The government and opposition had reached an EU-negotiated power-sharing deal at around 1:00pm on February 21, 2014 that envisaged Yanukovych remaining in power until elections towards the end of 2015. At an emotional opposition rally on the Maidan on the evening of February 21 to commemorate the slain, the then-unknown Parasyuk seized the microphone to fiercely denounce the deal and the parliamentary opposition that had signed it. Parasyuk told Yanukovych that if he did not resign by 10:00am the next day, his armed men would come and storm the presidential residence.

The crowd cheered this intervention, and Parasyuk has since been given credit for prompting Yanukovych's flight from his residence that same night, paving the way for the pro-EU opposition to come to power.

Parasyuk in his first press interview, given to Ukrainskaya Pravda on February 24, three days after his dramatic intervention from the stage of the Maidan, made no mention of any use of firearms during the protests. But asked why he wore army fatigues, he said he had had paramilitary training with a range of nationalist groups in his native West Ukraine. He also said that it was his group, numbering around 50, that were occupying the Conservatory." http://www.bne.eu/.../kyiv-blog-what-triggered-maidan-massacre

KYIV BLOG: What triggered the Maidan massacre? | Business New Europe
Opposition protestors fired on Ukrainian police before the ensuing massacre in Kyiv on February 2014,...
BNE.EU

Ivan Katchanovski: About two dozen of protesters, part of whom were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and hunting rifles, are seen entering the Hotel Ukraina in 10:17am during the massacre of the protesters in presence of several Svoboda deputies and many Maidan protesters and Western and Ukrainian journalists. Parasiuk orders them to go the 10th floor. BBC, AFP, Itele, Sky News, Globe and Mail, and a Ukrainian TV correspondents recorded this group entering the hotel, but they either downplayed this, showed parts of the group, or did not report this at all. More importantly, the media failed to connect the dots to the massacre of the protesters, although much of such evidence was available at that very time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xws_Yy3YVa8

December 24, 2014

Ivan Katchanovski: In his new interview, Yanukovych confirms that the Maidan shooters killed both the police and the protesters from the Hotel Ukraina and Zhovtnevyi Palace and that he fled Ukraine because he became an assassination target. He also indicates for the first time that his chief of staff ordered the violent dispersal of a small protest on the Maidan on November 30th to provoke large scale protests and that a preliminary investigation showed that the first killing of the protesters in January was also manipulated by the opposition.  http://www.aif.ru/.../viktor_yanukovich_eksklusivnoe_interview

December 19, 2014

Ivan Katchanovski: The full-text English version of my interview to Telepolis provides a link to previously unreported and little known videos containing direct evidence that the members of the Maidan opposition not only controlled the Hotel Ukraina during the massacre, but that they were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles of a 7.62mm caliber type and with hunting and other rifles, and that they shot with live ammunition from the Hotel Ukraina during the massacre. This is consistent with the type and the caliber of the ammunition used against both the unarmed protesters and the police, with directions of many bullet impacts in bodies of the protesters and in trees and poles in the massacre areas near the hotel, and with eyewitness reports by both the protesters and the police concerning the shooters from this hotel targeting them with live ammunition. These recordings also corroborate a report of SBU Alfa commanders that shooters moved to the hotel from the Maidan side. They also corroborate other videos and evidence showing that the Berkut and Omega fired at the shooters based at the Hotel Ukraina. Specifically, one of these recordings contains information about two groups of armed Maidan protesters looking for shooting positions on the same 11th floor, from which a few minutes afterwards the protesters and the BBC crew came under live ammunition fire from a shooter wearing a Maidan-style green helmet. The Ukrainian media and the government knew about this live broadcast but preferred to deliberately ignore it in order to promote a politically convenient version of the massacre. Some parts of this broadcast were rebroadcast live by Espresso TV during the massacre, but its crucial audio was removed. http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/44026041

December 17, 2014

Ivan Katchanovski: The interview with the lawyer of some of the killed protesters in Ukrainska pravda again demonstrates that the "snipers' massacre" on the Maidan continues to be openly falsified by the government and the media in Ukraine. The Western governments and the mainstream media, with some exceptions, continue to turn blind eye on this mass killing of Ukrainians that led to the violent overthrow of the government. The involvement of far right and oligarchic organizations and their leaders and members in the mass killing of fellow Maidan protesters and the police is not even considered, while the evidence of such involvement continues to be misrepresented, disregarded, and supressed. Videos showing Berkut and Omega openly shooting at the direction of the protesters are still used as the chief proof of their involvement, even though the videos are often deliberately selective and edited. In contrast, recordings of live broadcasts, videos, eyewitness testimonies, radio intercepts and bullet trajectories pointing to concealed shooters on the Maidan side armed with the Kalashnikov assault rifles, hunting rifles, and other guns of the same caliber used to kill both the police and the protesters are deliberately withheld, ignored or suppressed.
http://life.pravda.com.ua/person/2014/12/15/185841

December 17, 2014

Ivan Katchanovski: The recently released 55 minute long video, which was filmed by an unidentified person from the Hotel Ukraina and publicized by the Ukrainian media, exemplifies such a falsification. This video and numerous Ukrainian media reports about this video omit both moments of killing of most of the protesters and evidence of shooters in the Hotel Ukraina. The manifest content of the video focuses on the Berkut and Omega shooting at the direction of the protesters and the Hotel Ukraina. But analysis of its latent content and its comparison with other sources reveals that groups of shooters targeting the police and the protesters were based at the Hotel Ukraina and nearby buildings on Instytutska Street in the Maidan controlled areas. Specifically, Oleg Sukhynsky, a protester in a lilac cover shown shortly before and shortly after his wounding on 14 minute of the newly released video, said in his media interview that he saw that he was shot from the Hotel Ukraina. Serhii Bondarchuk was killed at about the same time and area. His story was featured in the Reuters report concerning the government investigation of the massacre. The Berkut members are charged with his killing, but his family members said that they had different evidence. In another media interview, his family members say that he was killed from the Hotel Ukraina. This location was not reported in the Reuters story. Two holes in a metal pole in the green fence near which the protesters were killed point to a bullet fired from a 7.62mm gun from the Hotel Ukraina. At least 13 protesters, identified by name by their relatives and by their fellow protesters who survived the massacre, were killed at about the same time and at the same or nearby spot. They include two from the Volyn Region. The BBC and STB correspondents showed that a Maidan-style green helmet wearing shooter or shooters were later shooting at the protesters from the same left wing of the Hotel Ukraina.

An exit bullet hole in the left side of his blue helmet and his position when he was shot at 39 min in the video indicates that Ustym Golodniuk was killed from the direction of the Hotel Ukraina, which is on the opposite side from the Berkut and Omega-manned barricade. His killing was publicized in Ukrainian and Polish documentaries and various media reports and attributed to the government snipers. More than dozen protesters were killed and wounded at the same spot. The Ukrainian government investigation stated last month that they did not find any evidence of "snipers" in the Hotel Ukraina and nearby buildings controlled by the Maidan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsE7lYVa5kk

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 A Closer Look on Syria: http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Maidan_snipers

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#6
Defusing the Nuclear Threat
https://nuclearrisk.wordpress.com
June 19, 2014
Transcript of Estonian FM Bombshell Revelation
Martin Hellman
Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering
Stanford University

My March 6 post introduced the bombshell revelation contained in Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet's intercepted, leaked, and authenticated phone conversation, in which he says, "there is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind [the] snipers ... it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition." I have been surprised not to be able to find a complete transcript of the almost 11 minute conversation, so I produced one and include it immediately after my signature line below. I believe it to be at least 99% accurate, but if anyone finds an error or has a different interpretation of what was said, please post it as a comment, indicating where in the YouTube audio it is located. Some other useful information:

1. German public television sent an investigative reporting team, which interviewed wounded protesters and gathered other evidence. They independently concluded that there was a serious possibility that Paet's allegation was correct. See my April 14 post for details and links.

2. Mainstream American media continue to either ignore this significant evidence, or to cover it in misleading ways. In particular, as of this writing (11:30 PM PDT on 19 JUNE 2014):

A Google search for the words Paet Ashton Kiev produced no relevant hits within the New York Times web site. The same was true for the Wall Street Journal, and TIME magazine.
The Los Angeles Times covered the conversation only once, on May 20, over two months after the information surfaced. Even then, the article misrepresented the content of the conversation by concluding, "But the pair [Paet and Ashton] discussed only the conspiracy theories, according to the 11-minute call posted on YouTube and confirmed by Estonia." Read the transcript, or even better listen to the YouTube audio, and reach your own conclusion.

The Daily Beast (formerly Newsweek magazine) also delayed coverage of the conversation, this time by several weeks, on March 30. The article presents photographs which it says "appear to reveal the truth about who carried out the shootings in Independence Square on that day." But the alleged truth here is that "Russian trained killers" were responsible, not violent elements within the protesters, as claimed by Paet. The article refers to Paet's allegation as "a weird post-script" to the massacre. The article quotes Dr. Olga Bogomolets as saying that, "she has no idea how Paet could think that was what she was saying." But, as the transcript below shows, Paet never said that Bogomolets was the source of the allegation that the snipers were from the new coalition. That is an understandable inference from the order in which he says things, but it is not what he said. Furthermore, Paet's allegation is a "declaration against interest," which deserves investigation, especially in light of the corroborating investigative report by German public television mentioned above. Another Daily Beast article a few days later similarly does not give the allegation the credence it deserves, and again focuses on Dr. Bogomolets denial.

Coverage in the Washington Post was similarly delayed until March 25 and April 3, and emphasized that the call was "presented to appear more controversial than they should," or Dr. Bogomolets' denial.

The Christian Science Monitor's coverage was slightly better, but still inadequate. It was prompt (March 8), but started with the Ukrainian government's allegation that Russia was responsible for the snipers. Only later does it get to Paet's allegation.

3. My June 4 post presents strong evidence that the new Ukrainian government's National Guard has killed unarmed protesters - behavior that, in February, President Obama said would not be tolerated by Yanukovych.

Martin Hellman

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT OF PAET-ASHTON 26 FEB 2014 CONVERSATION

[NOTE: Words in square brackets with question marks on either side of them are ones where I was not certain, for example [?Regane?]. Times are noted at a number of points in the transcript to ease correspondence with the YouTube audio.] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEgJ0oo3OA8]

0:00 phone rings, and a woman answers in a foreign language.

Man 1: Hello. Good afternoon, madam. This is [?Regane?] from the Center Action Service.

Woman 1: Yes, yes, hello.

Man 1: Surely, hello. (laughs) Should we go ... you think it's going to be possible straight away?

Woman 1: To connect to Mr. Paet?

Man 1: Yes.

Woman 1: Yes, yes.

Man 1: So please go on. I am connecting with the Lady Ashton cabinet. [Catherine Ashton is EU Commissioner for External Relations.]

Woman 1: Yes, thank you.

Man 1: You're welcome. (0:34)

Woman 2: Yes, hello. This is Miriam speaking.

Man 1: Yes, it is for the conference with the Estonian Foreign Minister. They are on line. Please stay on.

Woman 1: Hello. [Note: Women 1 and 2, here and below, may be new participants, but it does not affect the conversation.]

Woman 2: Yes, hello. Can you put me through please?

Woman 1: Yes, I will connect you to Minister Paet. One moment.

Woman 2: Thank you. 1:02

music plays while they are on hold, phone rings 1:20

Woman 2: Hello, minister?

Paet: Hello.

Woman 2: Hi. I put you through. Thank you very much.

Paet: Yes, thank you.

phone rings 1:37

Paet: Hello.

long silence 1:54

phone rings

Ashton 2: Hello.

Paet: Hello.

Ashton: Hello, how are you?

Paet: I am fine.

Ashton: Good.

Paet: And you? 2:00

Ashton: Good. I am good. I just wanted to catch up with you on what you thought when you were there.

Paet: oK, yes. I returned last night already, so that I was one day.

Ashton: Yeah. Impressions?

Paet: Impressions are sad.

Ashton: Um hum.

Paet: I met with representatives of Regions Party [originally Yanukovych's party, but it had dissociated from him by this point in time], also new coalition representatives, and also civil society [Ukrainian non-governmental organizations or NGOs]. There is this lady called Olga [Dr. Olga Bogomolets, who was tending to wounded protesters] who is head of the doctors. Yes, yes. You know her?

Ashton: I do. 2:30

Paet: Yes, so that, well, my impression is indeed sad that there is, well, no trust towards also these politicians who will return now to the coalition. Well, people from Maidan and from civil society, they say that they know everybody who will be in new government - all these guys have a dirty past. 2:52

Ashton: Yeah

Paet: So that, well, they made some proposals to the same Olga and some others from civil society to join new government. But this Olga, for example, she says directly that she is ready to go to the government only in the case if she can take with her, her team of foreign experts to start real health care reforms. 3:16

Ashton: Yeah.

Paet: So that, well, basically, it is that the trust level is absolutely low. On the other hand, all the security problems, this integrity problems, Crimea, all this stuff. Regions Party was absolutely upset. They say that, well, they accept, they accept this that now there will be new government. And there will be external elections. But there is enormous pressure against members of parliament - that there are uninvited visitors during the night ... to party members.

Well, journalists ... some journalists who were with me, they saw during the day that one member of parliament was just beaten in front of the parliament building by these guys with the guns on the streets. 4:10

Ashton: Yeah.

Paet: So that all this mess is still there. And, of course, this Olga and others from civil society, they were absolutely sure that people will not leave the streets before they see that the real reforms will start. So that it's not enough that there is just change of government. So that that is the main impression. 4:27

So that, from EU's and also well Estonia's point of view, of course, we should ready to put this financial package together. Also together with others. This very clear message is needed that it's not enough that there is change of government, but they say real reforms - you know, real action to increase the level of trust. Otherwise, it will end badly.

Because the Regions Party also said that, well, we will see that if the people from the eastern part of Ukraine will really wake up, and will start to demand their rights. Some people also with me, they were also in Donetsk. There people said that, well, we can't wait. How long still the occupation of Ukraine lasts in Donetsk. That it is real Russian city, and we would like now to see that, well, Russia will take over. So that well ... short impressions. 5:26

Ashton: No, very, very interesting. I just had a big meeting here with Olli Rehn [EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs] and the other commissioners about what we can do. I mean, we're working on financial packages - short, medium, long-term. Everything from how we get money in quickly. How we support the IMF. And how we get a kind of ... investment packages and business leaders and so on. 5:49

On the political side, we've worked [?out?] what resources we have got, and I offered to civil society, and to Yatsenyuk [Aresniy Yatsenyuk became the interim prime minister when what is now the "new coaltion" became the interim Ukrainian government] and Klitchko [Vitali Klitchko, one of the leaders of the new coalition, a former boxer, and now mayor of Kiev], and everybody I met yesterday: "We can offer you people who know how to do political and economic reform. The countries that are closest to Ukraine have been going through dramatic changes and have done big political and economic reforms. So we have got loads of experience to give you, which we're happy to give."

I said to the people in Maidan, "Yes, you want real reforms, but you've got to get through the short-term first. So you need to find ways in which you can establish a process that will have anticorruption at its heart, that will have people working alongside until the elections, and that you could be confident in the process. 6:41

Then I said to Olga, "You may not be Health Minister now, but you need to think about becoming Health Minister in the future, because people like you are going to be needed to be able to get and make sure that [?reform?]  happens.

I also said to them, "If you simply barricade the buildings now, and the government doesn't function, we cannot get money in, because we need a partner to partner with. 7:04

Paet: Absolutely.

Ashton: And I said to the opposition leaders, shortly to become government, "You need to reach out to Maidan. You need to be, you know, engaging with them. You also need to get ordinary police officers back on the streets under a new sense of their roles, so that people feel safe. 7:21

I said to the Party of the Regions people, "You have to go and lay flowers for the people [who] died. You have to show that you understand what you have ... what has happened here. Because what you were experiencing is anger of people who have seen the way that Yanukovych lived and the corruption. And they assume you are all the same." 7:40

And, also the people who have lost people and who feel that, you know, he ordered that to happen. There is quite a lot of shock I think in the city. A lot of sadness and shock, and that is going to come out in some very strange ways if they are not careful. I think all of us, we just have to work on this. We did a big meeting here today to try and get this in place.

But, yeah, very interesting, your observations. 8:04

Paet: It is. And, well, actually, the only politician [whom] the people from civil society mentioned positively was Poroshenko [Petro Poroshenko, known as "the chocolate king" was elected president of Ukraine in the May 25 election].

Ashton: Yeah, yeah. 8:15

Paet: So that he has some sort of, how to say, trust among all this Maidan people and civil society. 8:20

And, in fact, what was quite disturbing, the same Olga told that, well, all the evidence shows that people who were killed by snipers, from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers, killing people from both sides. [8:38]

Aston: Well, that's ... yeah.

Paet: So that, then she also showed me some photos. She said that as [a] medical doctor she can, you know, say that it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it's really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don't want to investigate what exactly happened. [8:58] So that there is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind [the] snipers, they were ... it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition. [9:10]

Ashton: I think we do want to investigate. I mean, I didn't pick that up. It's interesting. Gosh. 9:14

Paet: Yeah. So that it was [?indeed?] disturbing that, if it starts now to live its own life very powerfully, that it already discreditates [sic] from [the] very beginning also this new coalition. 9:24

Ashton: I mean this is what they have got to be careful of as well, that they need to demand great change, but they have got to let the Rada [Ukrainian Parliament] function. If the Rada doesn't function, then they have complete chaos. So that, it's all, you know, being an activist and a doctor is very, very important. But it means that you're not a politician. And somehow they've got to come to a kind of accommodation for the next few weeks, which is how the country is actually going to run. And then we get the elections and things can change. And that's, I think, going to be quite pop... I am planning to go back early next week, probably on Monday. 9:55

Paet: It's really important that now, well, people from Europe and also [the] West show up there so that it's absolutely...

Ashton: Well, [?Verislav?] is going with the Visegrad Group [an alliance of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia] Friday. Friday, Saturday. William Haig (unintelligible) on Sunday. I will be back again Monday.

Paet: Yes, I heard also that Canadian Minister is going on Friday. And yesterday also William Burns [the American Deputy Secretary of State] was there, so we met ...

Ashton: Yes, I saw Bill.

Paet: We met also with Burns there in Kiev yesterday.

Ashton: Yeah, good. Yeah, I didn't know that John Baird was going. I will get hold of him. Okay, my friend. It was great to talk to you. 10:26

Paet: Well, thanks for these comments, and wish you well. Nice Australia.

Ashton: Yeah. What?

Paet: Nice Australia. Enjoy!

Ashton: I am not going to go. I got to delay it because I'm going to do more Ukraine instead.

Paet: OK, good, good.

Ashton: All right, my friend ...

Paet: OK. Thank you. Thank you. And all the best to you. Bye.

Ashton: Bye.

END OF TRANSCRIPT

 

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