The “ Snipers
’ Massacre ” on
the Maidan in Ukraine
Ivan Katchanovski, Ph.D. School of Political Studies & Department of
Communication University of Ottawa Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada ikatchan@uottawa.ca
Paper presented at the Chair of Ukrainian Studies Seminar at the University of Ottawa,
Ottawa, October
1, 2014.
The “Snipers ’” Massacre
Question
The massacre of several dozen Maidan protesters on February 20, 2014 was
a turning point in Ukrainian politics and a tipping point in the
escalating conflict between the West and Russia
over Ukraine.
The mass killing of the protesters and the mass shooting of the police that
preceded it led to the overthrow of the highly corrupt and pro-Russian
but democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych and gave a start to
a large-scale violent conflict that continues now in Donbas in Eastern Ukraine. A conclusion promoted by the
post-Yanukovych governments and the media in Ukraine that the massacre was
perpetrated by government snipers on a Yanukovych order has been nearly
universally accepted by the Western
governments and the media, at least publicly, without concluding an
investigation and without all evidence considered.
For instance, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko in his speech to the US Congress on
September 18, 2014 again claimed that the Yanukovych government overthrow
resulted from mass peaceful protests against police violence, in particular,
killings of more than 100 protesters by snipers on February 20, 2014. The
question is which side organized the “snipers ’ massacre.”
This paper is the first academic study of this crucial case of the
mass killing. Analysis of a large amount of evidence in this study suggests
that certain elements of the Maidan opposition, including its extremist far
right wing, were involved in this massacre in order to seize power and that the
government investigation was falsified for this reason.
Evidence
Evidence used in this study includes publicly available but unreported,
suppressed, or misrepresented videos and photos of suspected shooters, live
statements by the Maidan announcers, radio intercepts of the Maidan “ snipers, ” and
snipers and commanders from the special
Alfa unit of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), ballistic trajectories,
eyewitness reports by both Maidan protesters and government special unit
commanders, public statements by both former and current government
officials, bullets and weapons used, types of wounds among both protesters and
the police, and the track record of politically motivated misrepresentations by
the Maidan politicians of other cases of violence during and after the
Euromaidan and historical conflicts. In particular, this study examines about
30 gigabytes of intercepted radio
exchanges of the Security
Service of Ukraine Alfa unit, Berkut, the Internal Troops, Omega, and other
government agencies during the entire Maidan protests. These files were posted
by a pro-Maidan Ukrainian radio amateur on a radio scanners forum, but they
never were reported by the media or acknowledged by the Ukrainian government.
The timeline of the massacre with precision to minutes and locations of both
the shooters and the government snipers was established in this study with
great certainty based on the synchronization of the sound on the main Maidan
stage, images, and other sources of evidence that independently corroborate
each other. The study uses content analysis of all publicly available videos of
the massacre, in particular, an unreported, time-stamped version of a
previously widely seen, long video of the massacre on Instytutska Street,
videos of suspected snipers and reports of snipers in live TV broadcasts and
Internet video streams from the Maidan (Independence Square), time-stamped and
unedited radio intercepts of SBU Alfa snipers and commanders, and radio
intercepts of Internal Troops on the Maidan. The analysis also uses live
Internet broadcasts. Recordings of all live TV and Internet broadcasts of the
massacre by Espresso TV, Hromadske TV, Spilno TV, Radio Liberty, and Ukrstream
TV, were either removed from their websites immediately following the massacre
or not made publicly available.
These recordings were mostly made by Maidan supporters, but they got
very scant attention or removed from public access.
Similarly, official results of ballistic, weapons, and medical examinations and
other evidence collected during the investigations concerning this massacre
have not been made public, while crucial evidence, including bullets and
weapons disappeared under the post- Yanukovych
government. This investigation relies on such evidence
reported by the media and reliable information in the
social media. An on-site research on the site of the massacre on the Maidan
itself and on Instytutska Street
was also conducted for this study by the author.
An Academic Investigation
A recently released time-stamped version of an over
40-minute-long video, which was filmed at a
close distance on Instytutska Street
starting at 9:06am, covers, with some unexplained omissions, the most intense
parts of the killings. It confirms that the mass killing of Maidan
protesters on February 20 began on the adjacent Instytutska Street around that time. The
Berkut anti-riot police and Internal Troops units, which were besieging,
storming, and blocking the Maidan for almost three months, hastily abandoned
their positions and fled by 9:00am, while protesters then started to advance
from their stronghold on the Maidan up Instytutska Street. This and other videos show members of
the special elite unit of the Berkut anti-riot police and
“Omega” Internal Troops special unit, including two snipers, temporarily
halting the advance of protesters near Zhovtnevyi Palace starting at 9:05am,
shooting with both live ammunition from the Kalashnikov assault rifles (AKMS)
and rubber bullets, and pointing
sniper rifles in the direction of
the protesters and then retreating along with Berkut and Internal Troops units,
who were resting in Zhovtnevyi Palace. After retreating to these
barricades under fire,
respectively, at 9:20am and 9:28am, Berkut and Omega were doing the same from
two barricades on Instytutska Street and nearby buildings of the National Bank
and the Club of the Cabinet of Ministers. Directions of many bullet holes and their impact marks in the electric poles, trees,
and walls of Zhovtnevyi
Palace and the Hotel
Ukraina also indicate that the police fired at the direction of the protesters
and the protester-held buildings. SBU snipers were located in the Cabinet of
Ministers, the Presidential Administration, and neighboring buildings. The new Ukrainian
government and the head of the parliamentary
commission publicly stated
that “snipers,” who massacred the unarmed protesters, were from these units .
Specifically, the Prosecutor General Office announced on September 12, 2014
that its investigation found a Berkut commander and two members of his unit
responsible for killing 39 Euromaidan protesters, or the absolute
majority of some 50 protesters killed or mortally wounded on February 20, 2014. But this Berkut
commander was then put under
house arrest, and he disappeared. In contrast, the government deliberately denies or
ignores evidence of shooters
and spotters in at least 12 buildings occupied by the Maidan side or located
within the general territory held by them during the massacre. This includes
the Hotel Ukraina, Zhovtnevyi
Palace, buildings
on both sides that were not previously identified as locations of snipers, and several buildings on the
Maidan (Independence Square),
such as the Conservatory, the Trade Union headquarters, and the Main Post
Office. (See Map 1).
The Hotel Ukraina was controlled by the Maidan side since about 9:00am.
During a volley of fire by the government forces near Zhovtnevyi Palace at
9:10-9:11am, and within a few minutes of calling for ambulances and medics, an
announcer on the Maidan stage publicly warned the protesters about
two to three snipers on the pendulum (second from the top) floor of the Hotel
Ukraina on the opposite side of the street. The first wave of casualties among
the protesters included Bohdan Solchanyk, a history instructor at the Ukrainian Catholic University
Map 1. Map of the massacre on February 20, 2014
in Lviv. He was killed by a 7.62mm
bullet in the area between the hotel and Zhovtnevyi at 9:12am or within a
couple minutes earlier. Videos indicate that one of the two protesters shot there at 9:14am appears to
had been wounded in his backside from a direction of the hotel. A Radio Liberty video shows at least one
protester shot near the Maidan side of Zhovtnevyi Palace
at 9:10am and two other protesters on the ground near the middle section of
this building at 9:19am. The first location matches a reported place of
killings of Vasyl Moisei from the Volhynian company of the Maidan Self-Defense
and an elderly protester, likely, Iosyp Shilling. The government investigation,
the media, and the
Volhynian company commanders concluded that
the Berkut shot dead these protesters during its counterattack. However, they
omitted bullet impact traces in trees, poles, and Zhovtnevyi Palace
facade within meters of these spots of the killings. Similarly, they omitted
reports by the Maidan protesters witnesses concerning shooters in the Hotel
Ukraina within minutes of these killings. In addition to the Maidan stage
warning about “snipers” in the Hotel Ukraina at 9:11am, a video shows protesters
taking cover under a pedestrian bridge on Instytutska Street between the hotel
and Zhovtnevyi Palace and pointing out at 9:23am live ammunition fire at them
and other protesters from a top floor of the hotel.
A BelSat video from the Hotel Ukraina
depicts a bullet hitting a tree in front of a group of protesters from
the direction of the hotel at 9:38am. A BBC video shows a sniper firing
at the BBC television crew and the Maidan protesters from an open window on the
pendulum floor of the hotel at 10:17am, and the BBC correspondent identifies the shooter as having
a green helmet worn by the Maidan protesters. Two protesters at 10:24am point
out sniper fire from the pendulum floor of the Hotel Ukraina in another video filmed from amid a
group of protesters under the deadly fire on Instytutska Street. A first-hand account by Ilya
Varlamov, his photos, a testimony by another
eyewitness, and two nearby shots in the live broadcast,
which was recorded from this hotel
starting at 8:49am, suggest that two other people were shot at 10:30-10:31am
from the Hotel Ukraina on the Maidan side. Warnings from the Maidan stage about
“three snipers” or “snipers” “shooting to kill” the Maidan protesters from the
same hotel, specifically on Instytutska
Street, were made again as the killings continued
there, for example, at 10:36, 10:59, 11:07, and 11:09am in the live broadcast.
Eyewitnesses in another video of the shooting around
4:00pm and the direction of the entry wound indicate that a bystander was
killed by a bullet from the Hotel Ukraina in front of Zhovtnevyi Palace.
In the late afternoon, a speaker on the Maidan stage threatened to
burn the Hotel Ukraina, as
they did the Trade Union building a day earlier, because of constant reports of
snipers in the hotel. But a previously unreported radio intercept of the Omega
commander (“Pegas”) and servicemen from his unit informed at 10:37am on February
21about gunshots coming from the Hotel Ukraina. Many eyewitnesses among the
Maidan protesters reported snipers firing from
the Hotel Ukraina during the massacre of the protesters, specifically, about killing eight of them and at least one
member of the Volhynian
company of the Maidan Self-Defense on Instytutska Street. Bullet holes in trees and
electricity poles on the site of the massacre and on the walls of Zhovtnevyi Palace indicate that shots came from the
direction of the hotel. When the Hotel Ukraina was controlled by the Maidan,
“snipers” there were also shooting at the police. A Berkut policeman was killed in front of Zhovtnevyi
Palace by two shots at 9:16am, minutes after the announcement about “snipers” in
the hotel. There were bullet impact traces in a trees and poles within meters
of this spot from a Hotel Ukraina direction. A Berkut commander stated that snipers in the
Hotel Ukraina were shooting at the policemen from 7.62mm caliber hunting guns.
A video from the police side
of the barricade depicts several Berkut policemen with 7.62 caliber AKMs and
many armed members of the Omega special Internal Troops unit with different
caliber AKS-74, including several snipers, taking cover from live ammunition
fire during the height of the massacre of the protesters starting from a few
minutes before 10:00am. It shows at the very end one Omega sniper targeting an
open window of the Hotel Ukraina and another sniper pointing his rifle in an
upward direction, likely toward Zhovtnevyi
Palace. A Ukrainian TV
journalist, who filmed this video, confirmed that they came under a
fire and were looking for a sniper in the Hotel Ukraina. The video also shows
two Berkut servicemen pointing their Kalashnikov rifles or shooting from the
top side of Kamaz trucks, likely at the same direction or in the direction of Muzeinyi Lane
buildings, where shooters could be seen in live broadcasts around the
same time. All these buildings and the protesters on Instytutska Street were located downslope
from this police barricade
Mustafa Nayem, an initiator of the Euromaidan protests and a widely
known journalist from Ukrainska Pravda, an openly pro-Maidan online newspaper,
twitted at 11:58am a photo of snipers on the
police side of this barricade located at the intersection of Instytutska and
Bankova streets. This photo was presented by the Ukrainian media as evidence
that these were snipers who massacred the protesters. However, these snipers
and Berkut special company shooters generally did not hide, and they allowed
the media and bystanders to film themselves during the
massacre.
Various sources of evidence indicate that Berkut and Omega used,
respectively, their AKMS, AKS, and sniper rifles and that they shot live
ammunition at the general direction of both the protesters and suspected
Maidan “ snipers.”
These live ammunition rounds came around the time of the killing and
wounding of many protesters. Videos show that at least a large proportion of
the victims were shot at that time while taking
cover behind a wall, trees, and a barricade, and
thus being outside of a hitting zone from the direction of
the police barricade and the adjacent government buildings, as the Google street
view illustrates. But a
possibility that some of the protesters, specifically armed ones, including
“snipers,” were wounded or killed by the police fire cannot be ruled out.
The Omega commander and an Internal Troops commander in charge of such
special units stated that they received orders to target snipers at the Hotel
Ukraina and other locations and had permission to shoot at armed protesters. A
former Berkut officer said that a sniper that
accompanied the Berkut special company had a task to look for a Right Sector
sniper in the Hotel Ukraina. Videos show the sniper lying
on the ground and then pointing his rifle into the direction of the Hotel
Ukraina at 9:23am exactly when one of the unarmed protesters is seen shot dead
in a close proximity near the barricade. This was used as evidence of a direct
hit, but the direction of the sniper rifle, sound of the gunshot, and a reported entry wound in the
right shoulder and an apparent exit wound on a left front side
of a torso, and an absence of a bullet hole on the shield indicate that the
gunshot came from a building located in the back or on the right side. A BBC report shows another unarmed
protestor shot dead in the same spot apparently from a similar direction within a minute before. An armed protestor in a
Berkut-style uniform was wounded in his arm while he was running away from the scene. Many
of the commanders and members of Omega, Alfa, and the special company of
disbanded Berkut were deployed by the post-Yanukovych government along with
Maidan Self-Defense and the Right Sector commanders and members in the civil
war with pro-Russian
separatists in Donbas in Eastern Ukraine.
A Ruptly TV video shows three armed
Maidan protesters who were shooting from a top floor of the Hotel Ukraina in
the direction not of the Independence
Square but of Instytutska Street, judging by buildings
that can be discerned. Volodymyr Ariev, an investigative journalist and a
member of the parliament from the Maidan coalition party, concluded that “ snipers” came
to the Hotel Ukraina from the Music Conservatory side and that they blocked the
Ruptly TV crew on the 14 th floor of the hotel. A RT report, the abovementioned video, and
other videos indicate that
they were armed Maidan protesters. But Ariev claimed without providing any
evidence that these “snipers” were
working for the Russian government.
A previously unreported intercept of radio
communications by the SBU Alfa commanders, contains specific information by the
head of this Security Service unit (“Suddia”) and his deputy (“Indeiets”) that
“shooters” or “snipers” were moving to the Hotel Ukraina and that they were
from the Maidan side. This is consistent with an interview of the former SBU
head, who said that one half of about 20 “snipers” with concealed AKMs in
bags moved from the neighboring Music Conservatory, which was held by the
Maidan, to the Hotel Ukraina, while another half moved in the direction of the
Dnipro Hotel, located on the European Square near Muzeinyi Lane. The most
complete time-stamped
version of the Alfa
commanders’ radio intercept synchronized with the local time indicates that
their report of shooters moving to the Hotel Ukraina was made at 9:23am. It is
contained among the intercepted radio exchanges of Alfa, Berkut, the
Internal Troops, Omega, and other government agencies during the entire Maidan
protests.
The Alfa commanders ’ intercept demonstrates that snipers from this
SBU unit were given an order to deploy to the Presidential Administration soon
after a full combat readiness was reported by them at 7:24am. It also contains
similar orders to get arms and deploy to these and other government locations
to other SBU units around the same time. In contrast to many fake claims and
evidence publicized by the Ukrainian government, the radio intercept is not a
fake. Their publicly available versions came from several different pro-Maidan
sources. One version with omitted
parts was posted by a news website run by an advisor to the current Minister of
Internal Affairs of Ukraine, but it was also not acknowledged by the
government. An unedited and time-stamped
intercept of a radio
communication by this SBU sniper team, led by “Miron,” demonstrates that they
were tasked with and were monitoring the Hotel Ukraina, specifically its top
floors, and other neighboring buildings for snipers and their spotters, who
helped to direct the fire, after the massacre was already underway. These snipers detected armed people,
who shot from the tops of the buildings or were lying there, and then swiftly
moved away after their location was communicated via radio among the SBU
snipers. The Alfa snipers were based then the Cabinet of Ministers building
(See Map 1). There are no sounds of gunshots by these SBU Alfa snipers or other
indications that they fired in the audio clips, which span the most intense
phase of the killings from 9:35am till 11:13am. Similarly, no evidence was
produced that the protesters were killed with German sniper rifles used by this
group of snipers. This is consistent with information provided by
three SBU Alfa commanders during the parliamentary
investigation and in their statements to Ukrainian TV
networks.
However, an edited version of this SBU sniper
team ’s radio communications intercept was posted on YouTube on the
day of the massacre with its content and added photos of the massacre
misrepresented to claim that these were the killers. It was swiftly used by
Ukrainian politicians, including the head of the parliamentary
commission, and the media as key evidence that these SBU snipers killed the
protesters. “Miron” stated that this highly
publicized version was also cut and did not include their reports of civilians
carrying weapons in bags in the European
Square. The time-stamped version includes such
cut-out parts in the beginning and the end, but some key time periods during
the massacre are missing there also.
European Square. The time-stamped
version includes such cut-out parts in the beginning and the end, but some key
time periods during the massacre are missing there also. Photo 1. Suspected
shooters on a roof of Zhovtnevyi
Palace during the
massacre. Source: Espresso TV broadcast In their radio
intercept, SBU snipers
report hearing numerous gunshots and seeing suspected snipers or their fire
coordinators at several other buildings then held by the Maidan side, such as
on the roof of Kinopalats at 9:43am. The Maidan announcers reported three snipers shooting
to kill from the top of Zhovtnevyi
Palace, which is
connected to Kinopalats, at 9:46 – 9:47am, and they repeated such
specific warnings until at least 10:53am. A bullet strikes a tree near a group
of protesters from the direction of these buildings during one of the firs ways
of mass killing at 9:45am, when within a couple of
minutes at least eight protesters were killed or seriously wounded in a few
meters radius from that tree. Bullet holes there indicate the same direction
(See Photo 2).
These three suspected “snipers” on the roof of Zhovtnevyi Palace
were seen and identified as such during another
wave of killing of protesters around 10:00am in a live broadcast (Photo 1). One
of them is recorded in the same spot on the top of this yellow building in a
BBC video at 10:04am, but this
was not previously noted. Two “ snipers ” there
were shown by ICTV
on February 20, 2014. An apparent human contour is noticeable on the roof of
Kinopalats in a photo taken by a French
photographer from the midst of the massacre when at least several protesters
were killed or seriously wounded near him around 10:20-10:25am.
The Maidan Self-Defense reportedly later found more than 80 bullet
casings on the roof of Zhovtnevyi
Palace. Eyewitnesses among the Maidan
protesters confirm presence of at least three snipers on Zhovtnevyi Palace
roof and its upper floor.
Photo 2. Bullet impact marks from the direction of Zhovtnevyi Palace
and Kinopalats on another tree at the site of the massacre. (Source: Photo by
the author)
There is similar evidence of shooters on the top of buildings on both
sides of Instytutska Street
in the general area that was under Maidan control. A recording of live
broadcast showed at 10:23am, 10:45am, and 12:15pm a person lying on a
roof of a Muzeinyi Lane building (see Photo 3 and the linked videos). In the
first two cases, a camera zoomed into these areas within minutes when gunshots were
heard and protesters were shot on Instytutska
Street. This recording appears to confirm previous
media reports about a different video showing a “sniper” on a roof shooting at
Berkut and then protesters from AK and wearing a Berkut-style uniform. The video was shown in
the Ukrainian parliament to some of the Maidan leaders and other members of the
parliament, but it is still not released publicly. There is also a brief
extract from an unknown video
showing a Maidan activist identifying a shooter, who was aiming his gun in the
direction of Instytutska Street, on a roof of an adjacent building on Muzeinyi
Lane. An apparent human figure might be noticed there at 10:23am. A bullet is seen
striking a pole from the Muzeinyi
Lane direction and ricocheting at 9:54am. At least several
protesters are killed and seriously wounded at this spot or in a few meters
radius within minutes of that time. Bullet holes in the trees on the site of
the massacre indicate the same direction of fire. A bullet
impact point suggests
that ABC News occupied room in the Hotel Ukraina was fired from a
direction of Muzeinyi Lane or Kinopalats buildings. Suspected shooters on the
green Arkada Bank building are pointed out by fleeing protesters after
many shots fired at 9:44am. Reports by SBU snipers in
their intercepted radio communication at 9:46am, by a female
Maidan medic at 10:04am in the BBC video, and by another protester in
the Radio Liberty video corroborate this.
A TVP journalist based in the Hotel Ukraina during the massacre stated that he saw one of the
“snipers” on the roof of Arkada and that their producer was shot from this
building’s roof in his Hotel Ukraina room, judging by the direction of a bullet
strike. Ruslana, in one of her announcements on the Maidan stage in
the afternoon, relayed “reliable reports” from the Maidan Self -Defense
members of “snipers” on the roof of Arkada.
Likely shooters or spotters can also be identified in windows on the
roofs of two other buildings in the 45 minute-long video of the massacre and in
the SBU snipers’ intercept at about the same time at 10:11 – 10:12am. One of the survivors of the massacre, who can be seen pointing
a hand after being wounded
there during one of the early waves of the killing around 9:44-9:45am, stated that shots that killed and
wounded most members of his group
came from the sides and from the back. Videos show at least eight
protesters killed and gravely wounded in this spot during this short period of
time and more than dozen other protesters gunned down in the same area on the
right side of Instytutska Street
within the next 45 minutes. He also said that his group of Svoboda-led
Khmelnytskyi company of the Maidan Self-Defense received an order to go there.
A video confirms this.
Likewise, bullet impact points in trees confirm the
live ammunition fire from this sidewise direction. It is noteworthy that some
crucial parts of this and other waves of the killings are missing in this long video filmed by an activist
of Zelenyi Front, a Kharkiv organization. This organization is associated with
one of the former opposition leaders, who became the Minister of Internal
Affairs in the post-Yanukovych government. Another pro-Maidan activist is seen
in different videos filming and taking pictures during the massacre from within
advancing protesters, many of whom were then killed and wounded. His
publicly released videos and photos also do not include
many crucial parts of the massacre. He later served in the special police
battalion Azov, which was created under formal command of the Ministry of
Internal Affairs, and he gained notoriety for painting a star on the top of a Moscow high-rise building.
In videos of both these pro-Maidan amateur photographs, there were no signs of
attempts to identify Maidan sniper positions in surrounding buildings, in spite
of their close proximity, or reaction to loud warnings from the Maidan stage
about snipers in these locations. Similarly, “shooters” did not appear to
target them to avoid possible identification, in contrast, to targeting many
professional foreign journalists, including the BBC correspondent in the same
area, the Associated
Press, TVP, ABC News, and
Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalists, and at least twice reporters
from both ARD and RT.
Another indication that the shooters were from the Maidan side is that
the gunshots on Instytutska Street
significantly subsided or stopped by about 10:50 – 11:20am, but they
continued on the Maidan itself. This square, along with main buildings and surrounding
areas, was under control of the opposition. This corresponds in time to a report by a senior
opposition leader, who became the head of the presidential administration
after the violent overthrow of the previous government, of receiving SMS
request at 10:45am from the commander of a sniper group, likely Alfa, Omega, or
Sokil, to allow their snipers to search together with Maidan representatives
for a shooter from the Hotel Ukraina. He also said that there was a subsequent
meeting between him together with Andrii Parubii, the Maidan Self-Defense
commander, with a group of government snipers. The reported fact and the
location of this meeting in the government-controlled area near the same
barricade with Berkut and Omega on Instytutska
Street close to the Presidential administration
also indicate that these snipers were regarded at the time by the opposition
leaders as not the actual killers, in spite of public statements to the
contrary. Similarly, there were two members of Svoboda leadership near the
Hotel Ukraina at the time of the massacre. The
government snipers accompanied by the Maidan Self-Defense reportedly remained
in the hotel area till 1:00 – 1:30pm. Exact locations of the
shooters could have been easily determined by open windows in the Hotel Ukraina
and eyewitnesses identifying them. There were also media reports of a few
captured “snipers” in this hotel.
But Maidan leaders denied that any shooters were there and claimed that
several Maidan Self-Defense and Right Sector searches at the Hotel Ukraina,
specifically conducted there around noon by Maidan protesters armed with AKMS or AKS and
rifles, in Zhovtnevyi Palace, and in the Conservatory during the massacre and
soon after it ended did not find any of the “shooters.” For, example,
Mustafa Nayem, who streamed live for Hromadske TV, stated at 3:00pm that a Right
Sector and Self-Defense search did not locate any snipers who were spotted on
an upper floor of the Hotel Ukraina. As noted the shootings from the hotel,
specifically one of its top floors, continued afterwards.
Similarly, several leaders of the opposition parties (Svoboda, the Radical Party, and the Fatherland) were speaking on the Maidan
stage and blaming the Yanukovych government and its snipers during the very
time or shortly after numerous gunshots fired from nearby buildings on the
Maidan. For example, a synchronization of a live broadcast recording and a brief
intercepted radio communication of the actual shooters show that
they fired several rounds of altogether 10 shots in quick succession at 11:33 – 11:34am.
The loud sound of these gunshots in a recording of the live broadcast (1h 08-09 min) from
the Kozatsky Hotel on the Maidan indicates that these shots likely came from
this or other nearby locations, such as the Trade Union building. A minute
afterwards, Oleksander Turchynov, a former head of the Security Service of
Ukraine who would become the head of the Ukrainian parliament and the acting
president after the violent overthrow of the Yanukovych government, started his speech with the “Slava
Ukraini” greeting, which was used by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
(OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and copied by the Maidan. Sounds
of other shots and sirens of moving ambulances can be heard in the live
broadcast during his speech. The manner of the communication of these shooters
in the single publicly available recording is very different from those of SBU
and Omega snipers and other government agencies in more than 30 gigabytes of
their intercepted, recorded, and released radio exchanges during the entire
Maidan protests. These intercepts, admissions by the Maidan
leaders that they had such intercepts, and a statement by the Alfa
commander all indicate that the shooters and their spotters had such radio
intercepts and were able to avoid tracking by the SBU snipers or move to
different positions.
Similarly, a female medic was wounded, and another protester standing
in front of her was killed on the Maidan near the
Kozatsky Hotel at 11:43am. This happened during a speech by Oleh Liashko, a
leader of the Radical Party, which openly cooperated after the overthrow of
Yanukovych with the neo-Nazi Social National Assembly, which was of the
founders of the Right Sector. A more distant sound of a shot than the
abovementioned rounds is heard at 1hour and 18 minutes in the live broadcast recording, which
starts at 10:23am. Eyewitnesses and the direction of
the entry wound indicate that this shot was made from the Main Post Office
building, which was occupied by the Right
Sector. This shooting case attracted big attention from the Ukrainian and Western media, but like all shootings of
protesters, journalists, and the police on the Independence Square, government snipers
were blamed and no real investigation was conducted. Eyewitnesses among the protesters,
the TVP
correspondent, and bullet
trajectories also point to shooters around the same time in the Trade
Union building, the Kozatsky Hotel, the Music Conservatory buildings, and some
other buildings on the Maidan itself. At 11:43am, an unidentified intruder
broke into a radio communication of the Internal Troops units, which retreated
from the Maidan, and informed them that there were
people aiming a rocket propelled grenade launcher into the Hotel Ukraina from
the 6th floor of the Trade Union building. SBU snipers noted people at the
top of this building at 10:53 and 10:59am.
An RT correspondent reported at 10:58am that a
7.62mm AKM bullet narrowly missed him at a Hotel Ukraina window and that its
trajectory pointed to the Conservatory building. An Associated Press
correspondent also reported being fired at
in his Hotel Ukraina room overlooking the Maidan in the morning of February 20,
and he found that bullet on his balcony.
An Australian ABC reporter’s hotel room was also
shot from the direction of the Maidan around that time. A BBC occupied room was
also fired upon. Various sources show
that Maidan shooters used these buildings to fire live ammunition at
journalists and at Berkut and Internal Troops at night or early morning on
February 20. Two Ukraina hotel rooms of German journalists were shot from the direction of the
Main Post Office, as a Ukrainian journalist working for the German TV reported
on his Facebook page, or from
the direction of Conservatory, located across the street from the new
headquarters of the Maidan Self-Defense and the Right Sector. The parliamentary
commission stated based on medical emergency services reports that shooting at
Berkut and Internal Troops from the Maidan and neighboring streets started on
February 20 at 6:10am. A parliament member from the Maidan opposition stated that he received a
phone call from a Berkut commander shorty after 7:00am that 11 members of his
police unit were wounded by shooters from the Music Conservatory
building. A Maidan Self-Defense search there found no shooters after this
parliament member informed Parubiii and other opposition leaders.
But this Berkut commander again reported that within a half an hour his unit
casualties increased to 21 wounded and three killed. Similarly, reports in the
morning of February 20 by the Internal Affairs Ministry, statements by the
former heads of SBU and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, radio
intercepts of Internal Troops, videos, and eyewitness accounts by the
protesters, including a Swedish neo- Nazi
volunteer , independently
confirm that the police units on the Maidan were shot with live ammunition from
the Conservatory and Trade Union buildings before 9:00am and that they swiftly retreated as a result of this
fire and the many casualties that they suffered. For instance, in their radio
communications, the Internal
Troops units, stationed on the Maidan near the Trade Union building, made
urgent requests for an ambulance at 8:08am, a life support vehicle at 8:21am,
an ambulance at 8:29am, two ambulances at 8:39am, five ambulances at 8:46am,
and then issued retreat orders at 8:49 and 8:50am.
A senior Internal Troops officer stated that they had
information that five “snipers” moved to the Conservatory from the Trade Union
building after it was burned by the protesters during Alfa’s attempt to seize
it after 11:00pm
on February 18. He also
confirmed the shooters killed and wounded many policemen from the Trade Union
building and Maidan tents before its burning, when it was occupied and
used as the headquarters of the Maidan Self-Defense and the Right Sector. At
least 17 of them were killed and 196 wounded from gunshots on February 18- 20, including three
killed and more than 20 wounded on February 20.
The radio intercepts of Internal Troops units and Alfa commanders and
snipers confirm that their
attempts to seize the Maidan and the Trade Union building on February 18 were
stopped by the burning of this building by its defenders and by use of live
ammunition by the Maidan Self-Defense and the Right Sector. These seizures of
the Maidan and its headquarters
were authorized by the Yanukovych government as a part of the “ Boomerang” and “Khvylia” plans.
These plans were put in force after an attempt by the opposition led by the
Maidan Self-Defense and the Right Sector to storm the parliament and their
burning of the Party of Regions headquarters resulting in a death of an
employee working there in the morning of the same day.An Alfa officer, who led
one of the SBU groups during storming of the Trade Union Building, stated that their task was to
seize the 5th floor, which contained a lot of weapons. The Right Sector
occupied the entire floor which served as both its headquarters and a base of
the Right Sector company of the Maidan Self-Defense. A radio
intercept of Alfa commanders
contains their report about deploying SBU snipers after two “snipers” or
spotters from the Maidan side were
noticed on a Maidan-controlled building, their preparation to storm this
building, and an order from their superior to Alfa jointly with the Internal
Troops to start this attack. The current government and the parliamentary
commission claimed without providing any evidence that Alfa burned the Trade
Union building and that undercover SBU agents burned the Party of Regions
headquarters. After these attacks, Berkut, the Internal Troops, and
titushki assembled by the Yanukovych government launched a counterassault, and at least five Maidan
protesters died as result of being beaten, driven over, or injured by
stun grenades. At least six Maidan protesters were killed on February 18 and 19
by gunshots, primarily from hunting weapons and pellets, like was the case with
three protesters killed in the end of January, 2014. The Maidan opposition and
the current government asserted without providing any evidence that these
protesters were gunned down by the Berkut and snipers, while similarities with
the “snipers’” massacre on the Maidan are not considered and not
investigated. The Main Post Office at the time of the February 20th shootings
was occupied by the Right Sector, an alliance of radical nationalist and
neo-Nazi organizations and football ultras groups, which took active part in
the violent attacks on the presidential administration on December 1, 2013 and
the parliament in the end of January and on February 18, 2014. The Maidan
company commander confirmed that at that time his
special combat company, which included armed protesters with experience of
fighting in armed conflicts, was based in the Conservatory building. He stated
that this company was formed with an agreement of the Right Sector. In a new US documentary investigating the
Maidan massacre, Berkut members said that they noticed protesters with the
Right Sector insignia in the Music Conservatory building on February 19, that
armed protesters took positions there, and that they were shot and wounded,
while other Berkut officers killed by shooters from the second floor of the
Conservatory in the morning of February 20. Maidan eyewitnesses among the
protesters said that organized groups
from Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions in Western Ukraine
arrived on the Maidan and moved to the Music Conservatory at the night of the
February 20th massacre, and that some of them were armed with
rifles.
The seeming absence of the Right Sector and this combat company during
the sniper s’ massacre of the protesters is the “dog that did not
bark” evidence pointing to their likely involvement. The leader of the Right
Sector shortly after the midnight announced that his organization
did not accept a truce agreement with Yanukovych and would undertake decisive
actions against the government forces. A report by the head of
the parliamentary commission concluded that “unknown civic organizations” could
have been shooters of the police. But these cases of the killing and wounding
of the police were not investigated by the government, specifically the
Ministry of Internal Affairs. This ministry created, along with the Right
Sector and the Social National Assembly, special police battalions, which
fought in Donbas. Similarly, the National
Guard was newly organized on the basis of the Internal Troops and the Maidan
Self-Defense. It 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, and 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, 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. Yanukovych fled from Kyiv on
the same day soon after this ultimatum was issued.
The types
of guns and ammunition used and the direction and types of entry wounds among
both protesters and policemen also confirm that the shooters came from the
Maidan side. The parliamentary commission reported that 17 protesters were
killed by buckshot (pellets), a part
were shot dead from AKMS (7.62х39 mm caliber), one from the Makarov handgun, while in most cases the
bullets went through the bodies. The Prosecutor General Office stated on April
2 that a SKS semi-automatic “sniper” carbine, which has the same caliber as
AKMS, was use to shoot protesters from the Hotel Ukraina, even though this
outdated firearm was not used by
professional snipers and was available in Ukraine as a hunting weapon.
But the Prosecutor General Office then began to claim that they still were
checking if any snipers were in the hotel. The head of the medical service of
the Euromaidan and other medics reported that both protesters and the police were shot by
similar ammunition, specifically 7.62mm caliber bullets and buckshot (pellets),
and that they had similar types of wounds. This information was relayed by the Estonian minister of foreign affairs
in his intercepted telephone call to the EU Foreign Affairs head. Various
statements by medics, videos, photos, and media reports confirm that dozens of
protesters were shot precisely in necks, heads, thighs, and hearts, the most
lethal places, and that many entry
wounds were from the top, side, or back.This is consistent with locations of
shooters on the roofs or top floors of all specified buildings. Precise and
deadly gunshots and the 7.62mm KalashnikovAKMS type assault rifles and various
hunting weapons and ammunition used also indicate that shooters were positioned
within several dozen meters from the places where both the police and the
protesters were killed or wounded. Photos, videos, eyewitness testimonies and
other sources demonstrate that some protesters were shooting with or openly
carrying hunting and sporting rifles, Kalashnikov assault rifles and their
hunting versions, Makarov, and other handguns during the mass shooting of the
police and the protesters. The parliamentary commission concluded that it was
very likely that the policemen on the
Maidan were shot from firearms and ammunition that were seized by protesters
from the police, internal troops, and SBU offices and arsenals in Western Ukraine on February 18 and 19. These weapons
specifically included 1,008 Makarov handguns, 59 AKMS (folding 7.62 caliber
Kalashnikov assault rifles, two SVD sniper rifles, and various other rifles and
shotguns. Their present whereabouts remain unknown. The failure by the
government to locate and identify the shooters of the protesters and
investigate the shooting of the police and the similar failure of the Maidan
Self-Defense to stop or detain them during the massacre in spite of their
locations being known at that time and in spite of calls to do so from the
protesters and the government officials also indicate that the shooters were
from the Maidan side. Media reports, eyewitness accounts, the audio of the
shooters, and statements by the former
SBU head and internal affairs minister
suggest that they included armed protesters and hired people with appropriate
experience from Ukraine
and foreign countries. But the specific identities of the shooters and the
politicians who directed them remain unknown. There were various public
allegations concerning purported involvement in the massacre of specific politicians
and political parties, but such allegations did not lead to any investigations
since these politicians or their parties occupied various positions in the new
government. The massacre master-minders and perpetrators are unlikely to be
uncovered by the current government, even though it has much more evidence
available that has still not been made public. This evidence includes reported
videos of shooters from Muzeinyi
Lane and the Trade Union buildings, intercepted
radio communications of Berkut, and ballistic and medical expert reports.
Videos and
photos of armed Berkut members shooting during their counterattack and then
from barricades were cited by the top Ukrainian government officials and by the
head of the special parliamentary commission and reported by the media as the
undisputable proof that the special police units massacred the protesters. The
Reuters reported that the prosecution
case against three Berkut members relies
on such videos and photos, and that some of key pieces of such evidence were
misrepresented or ignored. However, the analysis of the publicly available
evidence is inconclusive whether Berkut and Omega killed any of the protesters,
specifically unarmed ones, because there were other shooters killing the
protesters at the same very time. The head of the special parliamentary
commission reported that ammunition expertise, contrary to an earlier claim by
the minister of interior, failed to link any of their weapons to the killed
protesters and that many of their Kalashnikov assault rifles, records of their
use, and the bullet database disappeared when the new government was in power.
Similarly, while the new government and the head of the parliamentary
commission publicly alleged that an
order to kill unarmed protesters was issued personally by Yanukovych and that
his entire government and law enforcement agencies and commanders of Berkut, Internal
Troops, and SBU’s Alfa, were involved in this “criminal organization” by
implementing this order and issuing similar orders, no evidence of such order
was produced. Commanders of Alfa and its sniper team, Internal Troops, and
Omega all denied receiving such an order, and their radio intercepts confirm
this. The “sniper massacre” fits a pattern of the politically motivated
misrepresentations of the mass killing and other cases of violence by the same
Ukrainian political forces and the media involved. Such cases include the Odesa
massacre on May 2, 2014, killings of civilians in Donbas,
and the beating of Tetiana Chornovol last December and the abduction of Dmytro Bulatov,
two Maidan activists who became government ministers as a result of these
highly publicized cases. The new
investigations named the same suspects arrested in December in the Chornovol
case and pursued as the possibility a
version in which Bulatov’s abduction was staged. Contrary to the available
evidence, the government claimed that more than 40 Odesa protesters died as result of a fire caused by
them and claimed that separatists killed more than 1,000 civilians in Donbas by shelling them in their own cities and town.
Similar cases include misrepresentations of the involvement of the OUN and the
UPA in the mass killings of Poles and the Nazi-led mass murder of Jews and misrepresentations of more than
2,000 recently uncovered, primarily Jewish victims of Nazi-led executions in
the town of Volodymyr-Volynskyi
as Poles killed by the Soviet NKVD. While the various available evidence
indicates that the Malaysian airliner in Donbas
was likely shot down by separatists, such a track record also raises questions
in this case.
Conclusion
The
analysis and the evidence presented in this academic investigation put the
Euromaidan and the conflict in Ukraine
into a new perspective. The seemingly irrational mass shooting and killing of
the protesters and the police on February 20 appear to be rational from
self-interest based perspectives of rational choice and Weberian theories of
instrumentally-rational action. This includes the following: the Maidan leaders
gaining power as a result of the massacre, President Yanukovych and his other
top government officials fleeing on February 21, 2014 from Kyiv and then from
Ukraine, and the retreat by the police. The same concerns Maidan protesters being sent under deadly fire into
positions of no important value and then being killed wave by wave from
unexpected directions. Similarly, snipers killing unarmed protesters and
targeting foreign journalists but not Maidan leaders, the Maidan Self-Defense
and the Right Sector headquarters, the Maidan stage, and pro-Maidan photographs
become rational. While such actions are rational from a rational choice or
instrumentally-rational theoretical perspective, the massacre not only ended
many human lives but also undermined democracy, human rights, and the rule of
law in Ukraine.
The massacre of the protesters and the police represented a violent overthrow
of the government in Ukraine
and a major human rights crime. This violent overthrow constituted an
undemocratic change of government. It gave start to a large-scale violent
conflict that turned into a civil war in Eastern Ukraine, to a Russian military
intervention in support of separatists in Crimea and Donbas, and to a de-facto
break-up of Ukraine.
It also escalated an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. The evidence indicates
that an alliance of elements of the Maidan opposition and the far right was
involved in the mass killing of both
protesters and the police, while the involvement of the special police
units in killings of some of the protesters cannot be entirely ruled out based
on publicly available evidence. The new government that came to power largely
as a result of the massacre falsified its investigation, while the Ukrainian
media helped to misrepresent the mass killing of the protesters and the police. The evidence indicates that the far
right played a key role in the violent overthrow of the government in Ukraine. This
academic investigation also brings new important questions that need to be
addressed.
