This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Russia's Part in the Recent Murders of Ukrainian Citizens

It's important to understand the role of Putin in the recent deaths of Ukrainian citizens.  And I fear, Putin will not easily let go of Ukraine.

Below is taken from a Ukrainian newspaper, the Kyiv Post:

"The top law enforcement official for Viktor Yanukovych, the disgraced former Ukrainian president who is now a fugitive fleeing mass murder charges, had planned an even greater bloodbath to suppress anti-government protests, according to a member of parliament who said he has documents to prove his allegations. 

Find out what's happening in Fenton-High Ridgewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Hennadii Moskal, a member of parliament with Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna Party and Ukraine’s former deputy interior minister, said the plan called for surrounding Kyiv’s Independence Square with rooftop snipers whose mission would have been to wipe out the anti-government EuroMaidan protesters. Moskal said he obtained documents outlining the plan and released part of them publicly on his Facebook page in order to ensure that law enforcement officers bring criminal charges against Yanukovych and others responsible for the plan.

Whatever the aim of Yanukovych and former Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko, whose whereabouts is also unknown, at least part of the plan seems to have been implemented. Snipers working behind police lines on the south side of Independence Square killed at least 88 protesters from Feb. 18-20 before a temporary ceasefire took hold. Yanukovych signed a compromise agreement with opposition leaders on Feb. 21, but then fled Kyiv on Feb. 22 after his security and law enforcement officers abandoned him. Parliament impeached him the same day. An arrest warrant charging him with mass murder was issued.

Find out what's happening in Fenton-High Ridgewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

A joint statement by Zakharchenko and then-acting SBU head Oleksandr Yakymenko said their agencies would use “all legal measures” against protesters at 6 p.m. on Feb. 18 if “lawlessness would persist” in central Kyiv.

The documents Moskal said that he obtained identified the special operations by two code names – Boomerang and Wave.

The plans called for the deployment of 22,000 police officers, including 2,000 Berkut riot police, and 224 Security Services of Ukraine anti-terrorist Alpha Group officers, including seven snipers.

A map shows the planned routes and positions of police forces under special operations "Boomerang" and "Wave."

The documents also show that the plans called for the use of armored vehicles, various grenades and auxiliary units such as, bomb squads, emergency services, communication personnel and traffic police.

Moskal told the Kyiv Post the documents accounted for only 10 percent of the operations’ entire plan and said he would disclose the rest if authorities do not investigate and open criminal cases in the matter. He said he will cooperate with investigations.

Moskal said he published the materials to pressure the interim government into investigating the alleged operation.

He also said that, according to the documents, Russia played a role in the planned mass murders.

Moskal said that the former first deputy head of the general staff of the Russian Armed Forces’ Main Intelligence Directorate played a major role in planning the operations. Moskal said the Russian’s advice was needed because former acting Security Services head Oleksandr Yakymenko and Zakharchenko were not qualified to conduct such an operation. Yakymenko was a pilot and Zakharchenko was an economic crimes unit officer.

An e-mailed inquiry to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitri Peskov wasn’t immediately answered. The Russian Embassy in Kyiv was unavailable for comment.

According to Moskal, Zakharchenko gave the orders to shoot. On Feb. 20, Zakharchenko said publicly that police were authorized to use firearms to defend themselves.

Also guilty of giving orders, Moskal said, are” ex-Deputy Interior Minister Viktor Ratushniak, former department head of public safety Oleksiy Krykun, ex-commander of the Interior Ministry’s troops Stanislav Shulyak; chief of the main Interior Ministry department in Kyiv Valeriy Mazan; ex-head of the Security Service of Ukraine Oleksandr Yakymenko and his first deputy Volodymyr Totsky;  Security Services of Ukraine head for Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast Oleksandr Shchoholiev; and SBU Alpha Group commanders.

They could not be reached for comment. Many of their mobile phones, listed in the documents, are turned off or out of service.

Many of the operations’ plans coincide with the actual events that took place during the police raid of Feb. 18-19.  

The raid began at 8 p.m. on Feb. 18 and left 26 people dead, including 10 police officers and more than 1,000 injured. At least 60 people died on Feb. 20, mostly from deadly sniper fire. Three police officers died on the same day. In all, nearly 100 people (88 according to the Health Ministry’s latest count) have been killed in EuroMaidan protests since January.

At least some of the murderous plan outlined in the documents mirrors what happened.

For example, operatives used the roof of an adjacent building to access the House of Trade Unions, EuroMaidan’s then-headquarters on Kyiv’s Independence Square. Police attacked the House of Trade Unions sometime after midnight on Feb. 19. During the chaos, the building caught fire and burned throughout the night and into the morning.

The new perimeters that security and police forces set up after their raid resemble one of the proposed plan’s objectives.

The plan called for electricity to be cut off as it was on Feb. 18. KyivEnergo, the electricity utility owned by billionare Rinat Akhmetov – a major backer of Yanukovych – would have been responsible for electricity to the building.

Channel 5 – a TV channel that was critical of the authorities and is owned by lawmaker Petro Poroshenko – was actually cut off as per the plan.

Also, plans called for the metro entrances and exits of Maidan Nezalezhnosti and Khreshchatyk to be shut, as they were.

Road access to the center was to be tightly controlled or blocked, as it was on Feb. 18-20, with people spotted traffic police armed with Kalashnikov rifles.

Also, an armored vehicle was used to storm the barricade as per the police plan, but protesters set the vehicle ablaze with numerous Molotov cocktails.

The plan listed the names and mobile phone numbers of the state security and police officers that were responsible for each of the 24 disclosed assignments.

Only one person was reachable: Volodymyr Kotov, an explosives specialist. He told the Kyiv Post that his service didn’t take part “because there was no sign of explosives in the city center and no order for his group to take part in the operation.”

He said that Boomerang is a common term that police and the secret services use for anti-terrorist operations, adding that he was not aware of operation Wave.

Another event that adds legitimacy to Moskal’s claims and the documents’ authenticity is the use of snipers. In the operations’ plans, seven Security Service of Ukraine Alpha Group snipers were to be used and stationed atop four buildings on Khreshchatyk.

On Feb. 20, sniper fire killed dozens of protesters from positions along Institutska Street that runs perpendicular to Khreshchatyk Street. The most senior sniper listed was Lieutenant-Colonel A. M. Bychkivsky whose code name listed is “Myron.”

According to audio recordings made public on YouTube, allegedly of the radio communication of snipers on Feb. 20, a person named “Myron” is heard coordinating his actions with others."

This report was compiled by the Kyiv Post staff. All of our contacts are at www.kyivpost.com/contacts. 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Fenton-High Ridge