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2015
The massacre of almost 50 Maidan protesters on February 20, 2014 was a turning point in Ukrainian politics and a tipping point in the conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. This mass killing of the protesters and the mass shooting of the police that preceded it led to the overthrow of the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych and gave a start to a civil war in Donbas in Eastern Ukraine, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. A conclusion promoted by the post-Yanukovych governments and the media in Ukraine that the massacre was perpetrated by government snipers and special police units on a Yanukovych order has been nearly universally accepted by the Western governments, the media, and many scholars. The Ukrainian government investigation identified members of the special company of Berkut as responsible for killings of the absolute majority of the protesters, but did not release any evidence in support, with the exception of videos of the massacre. The question is which side organized the “snipers’ massacre.” This paper is the first academic study of this crucial case of the mass killing. It uses a theory of rational choice and a Weberian theory of instrumental rationality to examine actions of major actors both from the Yanukovych government, specifically various police and security forces, and the Maidan opposition, specifically its far right and oligarchic elements, during the massacre. The paper analyzes a large amount of evidence from different publicly available sources concerning this massacre and killings of specifics protesters. Qualitative content analysis includes the following data: about 1,500 videos and recordings of live internet and TV broadcasts from mass media and social media in different countries(some 150 gigabytes), news reports and social media posts by more than 100 journalists covering the massacre from Kyiv, some 5,000 photos, and nearly 30 gigabytes of publicly available radio intercepts of snipers and commanders from the special Alfa unit of the Security Service of Ukraine and Internal Troops, and Maidan massacre trial recordings. This study also employs field research on site of the massacre, eyewitness reports by both Maidan protesters and government special units commanders, statements by both former and current government officials, estimates of approximate ballistic trajectories, bullets and weapons used, and types of wounds among both protesters and the police. This study establishes a precise timeline for various events of the massacre, the locations of both the shooters and the government snipers, and the specific timeline and locations of nearly 50 protesters’ deaths. It also briefly analyzes other major cases of violence during and after the “Euromaidan.” This study includes two video appendixes. This academic investigation concludes that the massacre was a false flag operation, which was rationally planned and carried out with a goal of the overthrow of the government and seizure of power. It found various evidence of the involvement of an alliance of the far right organizations, specifically the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland. Concealed shooters and spotters were located in at least 20 Maidan-controlled buildings or areas. The various evidence that the protesters were killed from these locations include some 70 testimonies, primarily by Maidan protesters, several videos of “snipers” targeting protesters from these buildings, comparisons of positions of the specific protesters at the time of their killing and their entry wounds, and bullet impact signs. The study uncovered various videos and photos of armed Maidan “snipers” and spotters in many of these buildings. The paper presents implications of these findings for understanding the nature of the change of the government in Ukraine, the civil war in Donbas, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine.
The massacre of the protesters and the police during the “Euromaidan” mass protests on February 18-20, 2014 in Ukraine contributed to the overthrow of the Ukrainian government and ultimately to a start of the civil war in Donbas, Russian military interventions in Crimea and Donbas, the annexation of Crimea and an international conflict between the West and Russia. However, in spite of its importance to the politics of Ukraine and global politics this mass killing have been central subject of only a couple of studies. These studies concluded that the Maidan massacre of the protesters was a false flag operation and that far right organizations were involved in the mass killing of both police and the protesters. However, the dominant narrative promoted by the governments and the media in Ukraine and the West attributed the Maidan massacre of the protesters to the government forces and mostly ignored killings of the police. The official investigation by the Prosecutor General Office of Ukraine charged Berkut special police commanders and members with the massacre of the Madian protesters on Viktor Yanukovych orders and publicly stated that Berkut policemen and Internal Troops servicemen were killed by unknown persons of unknown allegiance. The research question is as follows: What does a large volume of various evidence made public for the first time by the Maidan massacre trials and government investigations reveal about which of the political forces were involved in this politically crucial case of mass killing? This paper analyzes more than 350 hours of video recordings of the Maidan massacre trials and information concerning investigations of this massacre in over 2,000 official court decisions in Ukraine, media interviews of prosecutors, Maidan and Berkut lawyers, and Ukrainian media reports about these trials and investigations. It examines court testimonies of wounded protesters and relatives of the killed protesters, results of forensic ballistic and medical examinations and investigative experiments, and videos and photos of the Maidan massacre shown during the trials. A video appendix includes brief relevant videos of the Maidan massacre and information from the recordings of the Maidan massacre trial. The 55 minute long online video appendix with added English-language subtitles is compiled from brief synchronized segments of on-site reports by American, Belgian, Belarusian, British, Finish, French, Dutch, German, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian TV correspondents and social media videos by various Maidan protesters who filmed this massacre on February 20, 2014. The study finds that the Maidan massacre investigations and trials revealed a variety of evidence, such as results of forensic examinations and testimonies of many wounded protesters, which shows that at least the absolute majority of the protesters were killed and wounded from Maidan-controlled locations and that the investigation and trials were for this reason stonewalled. The analysis shows patterns of ineffective and delayed Maidan massacre trials and the GPU investigations, trumped-up charges, and ignoring, reversing, and covering-up of the evidence, which was revealed by the GPU own investigation and which pointed to the massacre of the protesters and the police by “snipers” in the Maidan-controlled buildings and not by the Berkut police. The paper discusses implications of this study for understanding the Maidan massacre and the conflict in Ukraine and the international conflict over Ukraine.
2014 •
This paper analyzes the role of far right in the Ukrainian politics during the “Euromaidan” and the war in Donbas. The issue of the involvement of Ukrainian far right organizations in the “Euromaidan” and the war in Donbas have been politicized and polarized. Russian and separatist politicians and the media often presented the “Euromaidan” as a “fascist coup” and the Maidan government as a “fascist junta.” In contrast, the governments and the mainstream media in Western countries tended to present the role of the far right in the “Euromaidan” and in post-Maidan Ukraine, specifically in the conflict in Donbas, as marginal. Previous academic studies generally reached similar conclusions. They focused on numerical strength and electoral support for the far right parties and ignored other aspects of influence of the radical nationalist and neo-Nazi parties, specifically their role in the political violence, such as the Maidan and Odesa massacres and the war in Donbas. However, the number of academic studies of the contemporary far right in Ukraine is generally limited. The research question is as follows: What is the role of the far right in the Ukrainian politics during and after the “Euromaidan”? This study analyzes the involvement of specific Ukrainian radical nationalist and neo-Nazi organizations in the “Euromaidan,” the Odesa massacre, and the war in Donbas, their performance in the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2014 and the 2015 local elections in Ukraine. The analysis focuses on major Ukrainian far right organizations, such as Svoboda (Freedom), the Right Sector, the Social-National Assembly, the White Hammer, the UNA-UNSO, Bratstvo, and C14, and paramilitary formations or special police and National Guard units organized and controlled to various extent by them, such as the Azov regiment, Dnipro, Donbas, Aidar, Sich, and St. Mary’s battalions, and the Volunteer Ukrainian Corps. It uses various sources of data, such as online recordings of live broadcasts and videos of the Maidan and Odesa massacres and the war in Donbas, official database of court decisions in Ukraine concerning investigations of the involvement of the far right in major cases of political violence, video recordings of the Maidan massacre trial, information posted on websites and social media groups of far right organizations, and media reports in Ukrainian, Russian, and English languages. The study shows that the far right organizations had significant but minority representation among the Maidan leadership and protesters, the post-Maidan governments, and in the presidential, parliamentary, and local elections. However, the analysis also shows that the far right organizations and football ultras played a key role during violent attacks, such as attempts to storm the presidential administration on December 1, 2013 and the parliament of Ukraine in January and on February 18, 2014. There is also various evidence of the Right Sector involvement in a violent attack of the Berkut police during its highly publicized dispersal of protesters on November 30, 2013. The Right Sector and Svoboda and smaller organizations had a crucial role in the violent overthrow of the Viktor Yanukovych government, in particular, in the Maidan massacre of the protesters and the police on February 18-20, 2014. The study demonstrates that the Right Sector, the Social-National Assembly/ Patriot of Ukraine, and groups of football ultras were involved in the Odesa massacre on May 2, 2014. This paper also shows that the far right organizations and their volunteer battalions and paramilitary units had a significant role in the civil war in Donbas but a comparably minor role in fighting with several regular Russian military units during direct military interventions by Russia in August 2014 and February 2015. Major implications of this study for the Ukrainian politics and the conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine are discussed in the conclusion. This paper implies that the far right has significant but not dominant role in the Ukrainian politics during and after the “Euromaidan.” But far right organizations and their armed units had a key role in major cases of political violence during and after the “Euromaidan,” and they attained ability to overthrow by force the government of the one of the largest European countries.
The visual reconstruction of shooting at Maidan protesters and journalists demonstrates that Maidan protesters were shot by snipers in the Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled buildings during the Maidan massacre in Ukraine on February 20, 2014. The bullet holes identified in government forensic expert reports, videos, and photos from directions of the Maidan-controlled buildings are in the area, height, and directions that match the shooting of the protesters. The forensic examination reports by government investigators, videos and photos by journalists suggest that journalists from ABC (Australia), ARD TV (Germany) twice, Associate Press, BBC, Sky News, and RT in the Hotel Ukraina rooms facing Maidan were shot at from the Maidan-controlled areas. The visual reconstruction and the same data along with videos and media reports by journalists from these media suggest that ABC News (US) and TVP (Poland) journalists in the Hotel Ukraina were most likely shot at by snipers from the Maidan-controlled Bank Arkada. They suggest that a Ruptly reporter in the Hotel Ukraina was hit by a ricochet from a direction of a Berkut barricade. Russian journalists in other three locations of the Hotel Ukraina were shot at by Maidan snipers and/or by Berkut and Omega, which shot at snipers at the Hotel Ukraina. The visual reconstruction based on similar data shows that the Berkut police and Omega were generally shooting above protesters at the second and higher floors of the Hotel Ukraina and in electric poles, a flower box, and trees. Synchronized videos show that Maidan protesters in the massacre zone were in a blind spot below the line of Berkut police fire from behind a truck. This is an online appendix H of papers presented at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in Boston and the “Regimes and Societies in Conflict: Eastern Europe and Russia since 1956” conference by the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University and the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies in Uppsala in 2018.
2019 •
The new Ukrainian government is faced with reopening an inquiry into evidence of an organized mass killing in Kiev that Poroshenko stonewalled. Ivan Katchanovski investigates.
The Return of the Cold War: Ukraine, the West and Russia
The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine: A Summary of Analysis, Evidence and Findings2016 •
This chapter presents a summary of analysis, evidence, and findings of a study of the “snipers’ massacre” of “Euromaidan” protesters and policemen on the Maidan in Ukraine on February 20, 2014. This mass killing was a turning point in the Ukrainian politics and a tipping point in a conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. This massacre led to an overthrow of the government of Viktor Yanukovych and a Russian annexation in Crimea, a civil war in Donbas in Eastern Ukraine, and Russian military intervention in support of separatists in these regions. The question is which side was involved in the “snipers’ massacre.” This study relies on rational choice and Weberian theories of rational action. It employs interpretative and content analyses of a large number of different sources. The analysis shows that armed groups of concealed Maidan shooters first killed and wounded policemen on the Maidan and then protesters. Armed groups of “snipers” and parts of leadership of the far right organizations, such as the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland, were involved in various capacities in the massacre. This mass killing was misrepresented by the media and the governments in Ukraine and the West.
2019 •
2019 •
Revista Gestão, Inovação e Tecnologias
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