Fifth anniversary of the revolution in Ukraine: how the investigation of the shootings is progressing - ForumDaily
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The fifth anniversary of the revolution in Ukraine: how is the investigation of the shootings

Five years ago, 18-21 February 2014, in Kiev were the most widespread since the beginning of Euromaidan protests and security forces. The consequence of those events was the flight from the country of President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, the annexation of the Crimea and the protracted conflict in the south-east of Ukraine. Bi-bi-si remembers the chronicle of events of those days.

Фото: Depositphotos

A massive protest against the suspension by the Ukrainian government of the signing of an association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union has been in the center of Kiev since November 2013. Over the course of several months, attempts were made to disperse, laws have been adopted that toughen penalties for violating the rules for holding meetings, Viktor Yanukovych held talks with the opposition and even promised to form a coalition government. However, from February 18, the situation has dramatically escalated.

February 18

In the morning, protesters began an offensive from the Maidan to the Verkhovna Rada - the organizers called it a “peaceful offensive.” It escalated into battles between the “Maidanovites”, security forces and the so-called “titushki” - pro-government protesters.

Thousands of protesters marched down Institutskaya Street, then managed to overcome the police cordons and go out onto Grushevskogo Street, where the Ukrainian government building and the Verkhovna Rada are located.

When clashes began on the nearby streets - Shelkovichnaya, Lipskaya, Krepostny Lane - the security forces and “titushki” pushed back the protesters, and then seized the barricades at the beginning of Grushevsky, which the “Maidanovites” had held since the “Fire Baptism” on January 19.

There was also a confrontation in Mariinsky Park, where security forces and “titushki” also acted against the “Maidanovites.”

During the clashes that day, “titushki” in masks and with bats were able to push back the “Maidanovites”. There is evidence that they used firearms.

Then the protesters threw petrol bombs at the office of the Party of Regions on Lipskaya Street, where the fire started. An office employee died in the fire.

In the evening, the security forces were able to oust the protesters from the government quarter to the Maidan, breaking through the barricades on Institutskaya. The assault, which the authorities called an anti-terrorist operation, began.

Barricades burned. The fire began in the camp of Maidan and in the House of Trade Unions, in which at that time the protesters placed their hospital.

As a result of clashes on the Maidan and around 18 February, 18 activists died, and 500 were injured.

Berkut fighters. Photo: Depositphotos

February 19

Throughout the night of February 19 on the Maidan continued opposition. In the morning, reinforcements from the regions arrived to the protesters, and they were able to return positions along the perimeter of the square.

After the storming, opposition leaders once again went to the negotiations to the then incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych. At the end of the meeting, they reported that there would no longer be an assault on Maidan, since the parties had agreed on an armistice.

According to official data, on the night of February 18-19, 17 Maidan protesters were killed and more than 200 were injured. Activists of the EuromaidanSOS community reported dozens of missing people, with whom relatives or friends lost contact on February 18-19 after clashes with security forces.

February 20

On the night of February 20, the situation on Maidan was generally calm, but clashes from Institutskaya Street resumed in the morning.

Later, Berkut and internal troops began to retreat from the Maidan. The protesters took this as an opportunity to move further along Institutskaya Street.

Activists began to climb the street and came under cross fire. Killed a few dozen people.

Meanwhile, on Maidan, the fire in the House of Trade Unions was extinguished. Buses with new protesters continued to arrive from the regions. It was announced from the Maidan stage that many activists on Instytutskaya Street had gunshot wounds. Euromaidan announced mobilization.

The dead and wounded on this day were not only on Institutskaya Street and near the October Palace, but also in other parts of Maidan.

A female doctor received a gunshot wound to the neck near the monument to Archangel Michael - on the opposite side of Maidan Nezalezhnosti. (She tweeted: “I was killed,” but she was saved.) One of the victims was fatally wounded near the Stele of Independence. Thus, during the last phase of the clashes, virtually the entire territory of the square was under fire.

A delegation from the EU arrived in Kiev on the same day in order to negotiate and end the confrontation. All day and the following night, the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland spoke with opposition leaders and Viktor Yanukovych.

While negotiations were underway, dozens of deaths had already been recorded on Institutskaya. According to official figures, 48 activists died that day.

Institutskaya Street, where most of the “Heavenly Hundred” died. Photo: Depositphotos

February 21

In the morning there was information that Viktor Yanukovych was ready to announce early presidential elections.

On this day, a significant part of the security forces and special equipment left the government quarter. At noon, the president and the opposition leaders in the presence of the EU delegation signed an agreement to resolve the crisis, which provided for a return to the 2004 constitution of the year, early presidential elections and an investigation of the events on the Maidan.

In the evening, Maidan said goodbye to the dead, who were called the “Heavenly Hundred”.

People greeted the speeches of politicians with dissatisfied exclamations. Vitali Klitschko’s speech was interrupted by the leader of one of the protest groups, Vladimir Parasyuk, who said that without Yanukovych’s resignation, activists would launch an armed offensive. Thousands of people gathered supported this. “Right Sector” (later an organization banned in Russia) stated that it would not lay down its arms and was ready to take responsibility for the further development of events.

Against the background of the protests in the evening, Viktor Yanukovych, accompanied by guards, flew to Kharkov, and from there fled to the Crimea through the Crimea.

According to various estimates, from February 18 to February 20, 2014, from 78 to 83 activists died on and around the Maidan. The youngest of them, Nazar Voitovich, was 17, the eldest, Ivan Nakonechny, was 83 years old.

Since February 20, more than 20 more protesters have died from their injuries. So the “Heavenly Hundred” literally became a hundred.

Фото: Depositphotos

How is the investigation

In the so-called “Maidan case” - a group of criminal proceedings related to those tragic days - despite the past 5 years, it is too early to draw an end. Why are the processes being delayed, what is interfering with the work of the investigation, and when will we hear about new steps in the investigations, the site “Today“said Sergei Gorbatyuk, head of the special investigations department of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine.

— How do you currently predict the prospects for investigating the murders on the Maidan?

— There are crimes that have not been solved. These are the first murders. Until they are solved, the investigation will continue. For another part of the crimes, one can understand in detail and make forecasts only if we talk about each specific episode, that is: for the events of the 30th, the first of December, December 10-11, and so on.

There is a perception in society of the “big Maidan business”, and the question is asked “when will this matter be completed?” You can’t pose the question like that, because the “Big Maidan Case” consists of more than four thousand episodes of criminal acts. Indictments regarding 279 people have been sent to court, and these episodes will be brought to an end with the completion of these trials.

— What about the effectiveness of the investigation?

— For each episode, with the exception of the first murders, we have either almost all the involved performers, middle management and organizers, or some of them.

For example, regarding the events of November 30th: if we talk about suspicions, the organizers and middle management have been identified. The former president, the head of the National Security and Defense Council, his deputy, the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Kyiv police are accused of being the organizers. The middle link is the Berkut commanders.

Work continues on the perpetrators of the beating. This work did not produce results for a long time, but literally during 2018, 11 indictments were sent to court. About 40 people then used violence; the work will continue until these persons are identified, or until the moment when the investigator and prosecutor say “we did everything we could and exhausted all possibilities.” But even then you can entrust the case to another investigator so that he can try it.

It is difficult to talk about the timing of completion in general. Even if much of the work at the moment is completed, we are obliged to carry out investigative actions until all the persons involved in the commission of the crime have been established, and the indictments will not be sent to the court.

— Are the 30 people suspected in the events of November 11th the perpetrators?

— These are the “Berkut officers”: persons at the level of a platoon chief and below, and the lower level – ordinary fighters of the Kyiv “Berkut”. These are persons who are on the territory of Ukraine, they were informed of suspicion, and a preventive measure was chosen - either personal commitment or night house arrest. The investigation has been completed and the indictments have been sent to court. Two or three continue to work in the police. Nothing prohibits the leadership of law enforcement agencies from making such decisions based on the disciplinary statute.

— Why does the court make such conditionally “soft” decisions regarding people suspected of official crimes?

— For some reason, our court uses such a practice that in the overwhelming majority, with the exception of persons suspected of murder (and even then not always), they are not given a preventive measure in the form of detention. We have suspects of the Kharkov "Berkut" who were in custody and accused of three murders, thirty-three gunshot wounds, that is, attempted murders. But this did not prevent the court from changing the preventive measure “arrest” to a measure not related to detention, or, as in one case, leaving it without a preventive measure at all. The suspects fled, thereby “thanking” the court.

In other cases, the suspect of crimes during the dispersal of the student Maidan by the investigator and the prosecutor did not raise the issue of detention. The question of personal commitment was raised in order to complete the investigation as quickly as possible, without wasting time on justification, in order to get a negative result.

We even have two Berkut officers who have been wanted for more than a year. When they were detained, the court released them from custody on personal recognizance. It was enough for the court that the suspect said: “I didn’t know that they were looking for me for more than a year,” although he did not live at the place of registration, and accordingly, there was an order to the internal affairs bodies to search for them. But for some reason the detainee’s explanations to the court were sufficient.

We are faced with a situation where the court has an “individual” approach to making decisions on measures or permission to conduct investigative actions specifically in relation to suspects in cases of crimes during the Maidan.

— What is the reason for this approach of the judges?

— Previously, judges arrested Maidan activists. Investigators detained, prosecutors supported the petition and prosecuted. And, they say, “if we now arrest, the authorities may change and we will also be dragged around by investigators and prosecutors.”

The question is that in each case, with any authority of the judge, investigators and prosecutors must approach decision making objectively and on the basis of evidence. And if now you have the materials that justify these decisions, make a decision on the basis of the materials and in accordance with the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, and no one will ever pursue you.

Portraits of the “Heavenly Hundred”. Photo: Depositphotos

 

— How many people are currently wanted in connection with the events on the Maidan?

— More than 100 people. Again, the investigation has been stopped due to the search, but these cases will not be completed until these individuals are detained and sent to court. Or the special procedure, the so-called absentee proceedings, will not be used, although it should be noted that the possibility of its use has already been stopped. The State Bureau of Investigation began to operate, and the legislator determined that the peculiarities of the application of the norms of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine on pre-trial investigation in absentia, which made it possible to apply this procedure in practice, are valid until the SBI begins its activities.

— How do you personally feel about absentee proceedings in the Maidan cases?

— I am skeptical about the use of such a procedure in the forms in which it is carried out according to our code. Because the practice of the European Court of Human Rights is not observed, the requirements of both the UN and European conventions are violated, and, accordingly, the legislator creates, solely on procedural issues, grounds for those who are convicted to subsequently appeal to the European Court to declare the sentence illegal .

In my opinion, today the question of referral to the court under this procedure is doubtful. Previously received permission to start a special preliminary investigation at the investigation stage. Now we can't even do that.

The peculiarities of the so-called absentee legal proceedings consisted in the fact that they could be used if the person in search for more than 6 months, or is abroad.

Without these features, the basis for starting is still being on the international wanted list, that is, according to the practice that has developed, being in Interpol databases on the so-called “red card”. Interpol on Maidan cases in the period 14-15 formulated the position of “not to put anyone on the wanted list”, because it believes that these investigations are related to a change of power and, accordingly, may contain signs of political persecution, which they seek to distance themselves from and refuse to declare wanted Therefore, there will be no possibility of starting an investigation in absentia and using it unless the legislator prescribes clear and unambiguous criteria for this procedure. And it is important that this is done taking into account the practice of the ECHR and international conventions on human rights

— So, in practice, the case will not move forward until the suspect is physically in court?

- Yes.

Inscription: “Eternal memory of the Heavenly Hundred” Photo: Depositphotos

— Why did it happen that some weapons were destroyed, but others were not?

“At the initial stage, we identified a unit whose fighters used Kalashnikov assault rifles on the protesters. They took measures immediately after February 22nd to destroy the weapons. There was one sniper in that unit who received a Dragunov sniper rifle, which was also cut up and hidden. At the same time, watching the video recordings indicated that there were other people there, in a uniform that was not similar to the Berkut uniform and without yellow armbands.

Accordingly, those persons who are in court, who have been charged, and their colleagues who have escaped and who are wanted, were charged with committing a crime as part of a detachment “together with other unidentified persons.”

In one of the videos, after 10.00, the Berkut soldiers are joined by another unit with sniper rifles. Before this, there were other sniper units that were located on the roofs of individual buildings. They testified that they did not fire any shots and were simply monitoring the situation.

Accordingly, they did not expect that the investigation would gather enough evidence to establish the involvement of an individual fighter among them in the murder. But still, experts received data that allowed them to trace the weapon, respectively, to report suspicion. And indeed, the weapon continued to remain at the place of actual deployment. Shooting was carried out, and even if the weapon was stolen or lost, the sample bullet and cartridge case are stored in a special place, and with these samples can be compared.

- If at first it was compared with shootings, then why was there a need to look for weapons at all?

“Hundreds of studies have been conducted to identify and isolate the weapon used in the shooting. Investigators conducted studies of samples of weapons of all persons who at that time at least left the barracks in the center of Kyiv, no matter whether there was evidence of their participation or not.

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