It is one year on since the putsch which brought the current Junta to power in Kiev
My Maidan memories: Living through Ukraine's nightmare year (Part 2)
My Maidan memories: Living through Ukraine's nightmare year (Part 2)
Aleksey Yaroshevsky, RT
RT,
18
February, 2015
It
was a regular cold winter's day – February 18, 2014 – and nothing
suggested trouble. I was cooking dinner at home in Moscow whilst idly
following Twitter reports of growing unrest in Kiev.
“Oh,
another one,” I
thought. “Just when I
thought things were calming down.” We’d
been down that very same road just a month earlier – just when
everyone thought things had come to a standstill, violence erupted.
Roughly
six hours later I was standing alongside a huge RT crew at Kiev’s
Maidan Square, watching the protester-occupied Labor Union building
blazing. It looked so much worse than before that it was genuinely
terrifying. But I still had no idea about the extent of the nightmare
I just walked into.
But
allow me to go back a little. To New Year’s Eve 2013. For a news
reporter, these nights are not always about celebration and
festivities, but work. In December 2013, I was stationed in Kiev
covering the ongoing Maidan protests, and management had told me
several weeks earlier that I would be taking part in RT’s special
New Year coverage – direct from Kiev’s central square, which by
then had endured a month-long siege.
That
particular Maidan looked like it was coming to end, inevitably. Many
who were strongly energized with protest spirit just a month earlier
had become exhausted by this stalemate, which produced no visible
results. Some Kiev residents I knew – ardent opposition and
supporters of Yanukovich alike - had actually grown irritated with
the Maidan. Blocked streets, hordes of “guests
of the capital” roaming
central Kiev and no visible outcome from their dissent. Even the
authorities were no longer trying to shut the protest down – in the
early days of December 2013, I witnessed several attempts by police
to disperse the tent camp. It all came down to merely pushing and
shoving, just like in the days of the 2004 Orange Revolution.
This
even made it into humorous folklore – Ukrainians don’t like to
fight, they would rather patiently and non-violently besiege the
central square and wait until their foes just give up, having grown
tired of seeing flags waved. All factors considered, even optimistic
supporters of Maidan among my friends turned skeptical, thinking this
whole movement would completely die down as soon as it became too
cold to protest. My colleague, then-reporter for the Russian news
website Lenta.ru, Ilya Azar, also suggested in his pre-New Year piece
that Maidan would likely disperse for lack of motivation and clear
strategy.
I
left Kiev on January 3, after almost two months, and I remember
telling my wife as we boarded the plane: “We might be in for an
indefinite break from Kiev trips; I don’t expect things to flare up
here any time soon.”
Again,
we were all wrong thinking this protest could be over. Very, very
wrong.
The
situation started going belly-up less than three weeks after New
Year’s Eve. And that was another time I had to urgently board a
plane to Kiev, literally not having finished dinner with my family.
Violence flared up at the corner of the so-called governmental
quarter – just off Grushevskogo street. Ironically, the situation
exploded during what the opposition called a peace march on the
parliament. So much for peace.
I
recall telling my crew when they asked me whether things were really
bad this time that Ukraine could always treat us to an unexpected
twist of events, but it seldom got really violent. We were quickly
proven that this was not an axiom, as we delved into the noisy –
protesters continuously banging on metal objects generating deafening
cacophony – epicenter of tensions on Grushevskogo Street, with the
air above central Kiev poisoned with the scent of burning tires and
tear gas.
Our
January stint on Maidan was one crazy roller coaster. The first few
days – or should I rather say nights – were almost entirely
sleepless. We sat in our hotel room overlooking the riot scene
(still, to this day, I think we had the best vantage point of all
media covering the unrest) and waited for something to happen.
Some
nights were calm, some were not, but we were always working. Endless
live hits, frozen feet, tons of coffee and energy drinks. It was the
first time since the protests began that bullets – although
non-lethal at that time – started flying over central Kiev.
Violence started pouring over the edge from both sides, with
protesters using Molotov cocktails against law enforcement officials,
while the latter responded with rubber bullets and pellets. I got hit
on the back with those pellets – quite obviously coming from the
police – twice while doing a report from the balcony of the hotel.
I don’t know if it was deliberate or just a stray shot, but my
bulletproof vest made sure my injuries were restricted to a slight
swelling.
And
then came the Unity Day of Ukraine, on January 22. I woke up at seven
in the morning to a phone call from my cameraman. “Alex,
you’ve got to get over here, to my room,” he
said with a shaking voice.“The
police are on the offensive and they have just shot at me while I was
trying to film out of the window. Thank God they missed.” The
whole day was a bit of a blur – we went live in the middle of the
major brawl between the protesters and the police.
While
I was on the receiving end of pellets reporting from the balcony, my
colleague Peter Oliver found himself in the thick of the fighting.
Several hours later the first casualty was confirmed – protester
Sergey Nigoyan was said to have died after a supposedly non-lethal
police bullet hit him in the carotid artery. Then another one dead –
a Belarusian mercenary fighting along the radical nationalist
Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian People's Self Defense
Organization (UNA-UNSO) movement.
Things
were spiraling out of control. But – as had usually happened in the
case of Ukraine – receded to another standstill just as quickly.
Not to mention a nervous standoff at the Ukrainsky Dom museum in the
freezing cold for a few hours, with a few dozen policemen barricading
themselves inside and protesters forcing them out.
It
now seems naive, but we kept thinking all the time back then that
this was surely the limit of this violence. It couldn't get any worse
than this, and the political forces would now find a compromise. But
it was the first time then that I had an idea which seemed crazy and
unthinkable, maybe even like a conspiracy theory (which I genuinely
despise): that somebody did not want the Maidan demonstrations to
end. That someone was interested in going to the very end.
That this
protest was forcefully evolving from peaceful, popular and quite
justified unrest into a violent cynical revolution, tailored to suit
someone’s needs.
Nevertheless,
I left Kiev again in the first few days of February. Again thinking
my Maidan-break would last for months. The opposition and those in
power were negotiating, tires were no longer burning and the riot
scene at the corner of Grushevskogo went quiet. It was déjà vu –
after emotions exploded for a short while, it went back to square
one. So typical and common. Roughly 10 days later, the 72 hours that
changed Ukraine forever began.
On
February 18, when we got to Maidan, it had literally turned into
burning hell. The whole square was ablaze. The adjoining Trade Unions
Building – headquarters of the Maidan – was blazing and flashbang
grenades were exploding all over the place.
We
made a bad choice in booking the same hotel where we had stayed in
January, but we couldn’t even get close to it – a polite, yet
very nervous policemen told us that area was unsafe and it was
completely cordoned off. “They
are using live rounds against us,” we
were told by a sergeant. We didn’t have time to be shocked by such
statement or attempt to verify it (although some popping sounds were
indeed audible in the distance). We had to find a way to get settled
and get our work done as soon as possible.
Going
live all night via broadband, it was only by 7am that we found a way
to sneak over to the other side of the barricade – to the Hotel
Ukraina – where we had a studio for a proper live hit. And it took
us almost a full hour to find a detour around the burning barricades.
From the height of the seventh floor, Maidan looked like a hellish
cauldron.
The
next day – also filled with live reports and a lot of filming –
we heard of a symbolic truce which the opposition and the authorities
struck. It was then that I first made it to the police side of the
protest, by the Dnipro Hotel. I was wearing my press vest, and
different policemen had, to put it mildly, different reactions to
that. Some were polite and cooperative; some shouted at me that I had
to get the hell out of there.
In
any case, I was interested in what the mood was like on the other
side and had a few chats with them. Needless to say I was surprised
to learn that they were either boiling mad (for not being given
orders to“mash those protesters
into the ground”)
or scared – many of them again said they were shot at with live
ammunition by the protesters. Nevertheless, despite Maidan still
burning and smoldering, it seemed that some kind of truce really was
holding. Some of the police by the government building were quite
relaxed and told me they couldn’t wait to change shifts –
standing out there in the freezing cold for days was taking a toll on
them too.
On
February 20, I woke up at 8am, as I had a live hit scheduled for 9am.
I monitored updates as I brushed my teeth – it seemed that the
night had passed relatively calmly and nothing suggested that things
would go otherwise. That’s when I also received a text from my
wife: “It
seems quite peaceful there, I just watched the news.” But
as I walked towards Hotel Ukraina I saw several flipped burnt cars on
the sidewalk of Institutskaya Street.
A
grumpy policeman told me that I could proceed down the street only at
my own risk. “But
there’s a truce, isn’t there?” I
asked. He silently pointed at a burnt car, suggesting that was not
the case. As I made my way further down the street, I saw an
absolutely blood-chilling picture: scores of policemen lay on
ambulance stretchers, all with different injuries. Some were bleeding
heavily. One of them apparently had part of his hand blown off. That
did not look like a truce at all. And by the time I reached my live
hit spot just outside the hotel, the showdown began – right as I
spoke live on air.
You
could see for yourselves in that raw video that things were spiraling
out of control very quickly and, I have to admit, it was very scary.
Particularly because this was happening in one of the friendliest
cities on the planet. Just an hour later I filmed the first wounded
(most of them later died) carried into the hotel lobby, which was
turned into a field hospital by the protesters. Several minutes after
I filmed a video which still gives me a lot of doubts as to how this
massacre happened on that day – on it you could see unarmed
protesters moving towards police lines and a man who just fired a
rifle running bac
Just
minutes later my cameraman and I were nearly killed in the hotel room
we were about to broadcast live from by what looked like a sniper
shot. I don’t really want to go on about this all over again –
especially with my colleagues now risking their lives in the war zone
– but I’m still trying to understand who wanted us dead at that
moment.
That
brings me to the investigation of Maidan snipers. Or should I say,
the non-investigation of it? In the most recent twist (and what a
bizarre one too), the newly-appointed prosecutor general of Ukraine
said at a press conference in Kiev that “investigators had no data
supporting the notion that Maidan activists fired lethal rounds at
the police.” That was his response to a belated, but nonetheless
important investigation by the BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse. Oh, well.
So the people dressed in military uniforms and self-made helmets who
WE filmed firing sniper shots from the top floor of the Hotel towards
the police lines must have been someone else then.
And
13 policemen who were confirmed dead on February 20 must have shot
themselves. And a guy who I filmed hastily retreating from the police
lines with a smoking rifle must have just been taking a morning jog.
I don’t mean to be overly sarcastic about this, but I would
certainly appreciate it if those investigating the tragedy at the
Maidan would consider the evidence we filmed, as well as witness
accounts provided by the German ARD channel and the BBC.
The
prosecutor general might also care to investigate why the
coordinators from UNA-UNSO movement – the only ones present at the
Maidan with actual military experience – who had previously been
sitting quietly in their tents on the square, were seen roaming
around at Hotel Ukraina on that day, whilst one of them directed the
initial assault on the police from the stage. And there is plenty of
documented evidence of that. Just as he would probably want to
investigate why one of the opposition MPs was trying to remove a
sniper rifle in a case from the scene. Or maybe the fact that those
bullets which hit the interiors of the Hotel Ukraina were unmarked –
meaning they could not have belonged to law enforcement. We would
happily provide all the footage and physical evidence we have. But
nobody has ever asked for it.
As
I've said before, I despise and detest conspiracy theories. Until
proven otherwise, I'll regard all statements and allegations that the
Maidan massacre was orchestrated by the CIA/FSB as total nonsense. I
do not want to accuse anyone in particular with this article. I do,
however, feel that the spark which ignited the peaceful protest and
turned it into a fully-fledged murder spree came from someone else.
And it pains me personally that nothing is being done to investigate
it. There are still no solid facts proving involvement of any third
party, but only because no efforts have been made by investigators.
And for my part, I know that this tragedy didn’t happen out of the
blue – that it was well orchestrated. Simply because I only believe
my own eyes and I witnessed Maidan in its entirety – from a small
and cozy gathering on a warm November evening to the bloodletting
catastrophe.
If
you read part 1 of my Maidan memories, you know how I felt about this
movement when it began – I was largely on board with what the
protesters were saying. And I still refuse to believe that the very
same people I shared the Maidan with back in November – smart,
peaceful and aspiring to changes for their country – would have
ever wanted to see corpses of their compatriots piling up on the
streets of their capital. Or would have taken up arms and become
cold-blooded killers. Their idea was to inspire change through
peaceful means, to change the government through early elections and
make their country strong and prosperous.
Until
what started as a movement with a noble cause was hijacked by those
believing the change may only come through spilling a lot of blood.
'Hijacked' might sound like a bad cliché, but to me this is exactly
what happened with Maidan. I have acquired enough accounts from
policemen prior to and after the shooting which suggested they had no
orders to shoot unarmed protesters, only using lethal force to
protect themselves against rioters armed with lethal firearms and
shooting at them. Just as I have recorded enough accounts from people
from the Maidan – including a former opposition MP at that time –
who said going on an armed offensive was never the plan. There’s
enough material for a book, which I may write one day.
On
the evening of February 20, my sound man and I went for a quick
grocery run. We hadn’t eaten for almost 30 hours by that point, as
it was too dangerous to get out of the hotel. On our way back we saw
doctors carrying the dead towards the Maidan square for a vigil. One,
two, seven…we counted at least 13 bodies. One of those looked like
it had been decapitated, or hit with a high-caliber rifle in the
head. By then, large parts of Maidan were covered with dead bodies.
Most of these people were unarmed when they were killed, but there is
still no definite answer as to who pulled the trigger.
Who
wanted this blood? I fear that we will never know. At least the
unwillingness to investigate it suggests that this may be a very
well-guarded secret. But I can make this promise here – while I’m
alive, I will not stop looking for answers to this question. Not only
because on that day I lost my Ukraine, which I had loved so dearly.
But first and foremost because I feel that I have a moral obligation
to the families of those who lost their loved ones on that day – so
that they would finally know the truth. Someday.
We
Didn't Betray Ukraine: The Berkut Story One
Year On
In
an exclusive interview, Alexander Popov and Sergei Khayrulskiy,
former Berkut operatives, say the public disturbances at Kiev’s
'Maidan' escalated into street fighting - ultimately leading to a
coup d’état in Ukraine.
18
February, 2015
Exactly
one year has passed since the public disturbances at Kiev’s
'Maidan' escalated into street fighting — ultimately leading to a
coup d’état in Ukraine. Members of the Ukrainian 'Berkut' special
police force were involved in these events from the beginning. The
new Ukrainian authorities now label them as traitors, and blame them
for the numerous deaths and injuries that occurred during the riots.
Alexander
Popov and Sergei Khayrulskiy are two former Berkut operatives who
moved to Russia and enlisted at the Moscow Special Purposes Center of
Russia’s Ministry of the Interior. They firmly believe that they
were doing the right thing back then on the streets of Kiev. "We
have nothing to be ashamed of, we did not betray Ukraine. We were
doing our duty until the end; we were the ones betrayed by Ukraine,"
they say.
Alexander:
Because we’re considered criminals now in Ukraine, even though we
were simply doing our duty. Not once did we exceed our authority
while we were trying to keep the public order, and yet the Ukrainian
authorities have initiated five criminal cases against us.
Sergei:
Some Berkut operatives in Ukraine have already been sentenced to 23
or 24 years in prison. Men who were just protecting law and order in
Kiev got longer sentences than some convicted murderers.
And
did the people really believe in the 'Maidan'?
Alexander:
Of course not! For the majority of Ukrainians, this 'maidan' was some
kind of circus or a freak show. The people were coming to Kiev in
droves only to take a look at it. There were many visitors from other
cities. However, when the protests turned violent, all the sensible
people fled and only the paid activists remained.
Sergei:
For some, the 'maidan' was simply a place of work. Man the barricades
for six hours, get paid and go home.
Alexander:
When we were facing them in the square for the first time, there were
men and women among the crowd, like 40-45 years of age. "Guys,
just let us stay here until 6 a.m.," they were telling us
without beating around the bush. "We were paid to stay here
until six. We’ll be only pretending to tussle with you, and then
we’ll leave."
Sergei:
Keep in mind, those football fans weren’t exactly motivated by some
sort of ideology. They were hired muscle. Football fan clubs can
quickly provide a recruiter with a large number of active, aggressive
young men for a reasonable price. A headmaster of some school or
academy won’t do such a thing to his students, but the fans are
always eager to take to the streets and are capable of mobilizing up
to 50 guys in each and every city.
Alexander:
Back then, tearing down statues of Lenin wasn’t quite so trendy;
this was the first time. The Berkut company from Chernihiv, some 30
guys, were deployed to prevent it. They just formed a protective ring
around the monument. A throng of up to 300 militants set upon them
immediately and started to beat them up. A local shop girl managed to
hide one of the wounded operatives in her stall. None of our men were
unscathed; they were practically torn apart by the crowd.
Reinforcements
were sent to rescue our men. Damn the monument, just let us retrieve
our guys, the rioters were told. But no, in response they just tossed
an improvised fragmentation bomb into our bus.
Sergei:
I always wonder why people keep mentioning the so called 'heavenly
hundred,' yet no Ukrainian media agency mentions police officers
killed during the riots – much more than a hundred, I think — at
the Independence Square. I’ve personally witnessed the deaths of
three officers, and countless injuries as well. I think about 10% of
the force was killed there, yet the Ukrainian TV prefers to ignore
it.
What
are your most vivid memories from those days?
Alexander:
I remember burning gasoline streaming down my back… They threw a
Molotov at me. I’m burning, my uniform is melting, and yet my back
feels cold. I didn’t feel heat or pain, just cold. I still remember
how it felt.
Sergei:
And I still can’t forget how well organized and massively funded
that whole mess was. 'Maidan' was fueled by money and drugs – and
it’s not just some Internet rumors, we saw the evidence ourselves.
I
mean, we spent two to three days with no food or rest while on duty
there, taking short naps whenever and wherever we could. And while
we, trained and hardened fighters, were severely exhausted by these
ordeals, the people on the other side were always energetic. There's
no mistaking it, as we were keeping track of their faces – it is a
sort of a professional habit, you see. How many common, untrained
people do you know who would be capable of crawling over the
barricades, moving construction materials, throwing stones and
shouting slogans for three days straight? And there were scores of
such people there.
We
confiscated many cellphones there during arrests, and found more on
the barricades. And the messages on those phones often contained
information about huge lists of money transfers: card numbers, phone
numbers and sums of money, both in hryvnias and in US dollars.
Alexander:
We found big packages of foreign-made army socks, padded clothing,
and tons of other stuff. Without all those supplies there would’ve
been no 'maidan.'
There
was one other thing. In that six- or seven-story building that was
occupied by the Right Sector, there were troop billets of sorts at
each floor. There were pallets covered with mattresses, and when we
were sweeping the building, we found countless used syringes
underneath them.
Sergei:
For a Berkut operative getting captured by them meant certain death.
One time a car stopped in front of us, and its occupants dumped a guy
from Zaporizhia at our feet. His limbs were broken, and he had been
repeatedly stabbed with a spike. We dragged him to the infirmary –
no clue if he survived or not…
And
at the same time they were constantly calling us to defect to them.
Why do you hold the line, they said, your pay is miserable… They
offered us apartments in Kiev, they offered us money. Girls promised
to marry those who would defect. Basically, throw down your riot
shield and you’ll get whatever you want. Even a single turncoat
would’ve created a tremendous propaganda opportunity for them, but
none of us defected.
Alexander:
The decisions were made during a meeting with the Right Sector, when
its representatives came to a meeting with our commander. They
demanded that we lay down our arms and surrender, threatening to
storm our positions if we don’t comply. Our commander replied that
now that there is no risk of civilian casualties, they were welcome
to try.
There’s
our regiment and four battalions from other cities, and all of us are
really angry. We said, "Give us an excuse and we’ll take out
any attackers, then we’ll march to Kiev and sweep the city clean of
your filth." They knew that we weren’t bluffing, so they
allowed us to leave. Even those from the Kiev battalion who wanted to
leave were able to do so.
And
the way we were greeted at home sharply contrasted with how we were
treated in Kiev. While in the capital our buses were chased and shot
at, the residents in our hometown came all the way to our base simply
to hug us. They were lifting us up, toasting our return with
champagne. They truly appreciated what we did.
Alexander:
I don’t think that I betrayed Ukraine. I thought a lot about this.
Today it is basically a fascist state. I love Ukraine as my
motherland, but I despise its current state that was brought upon her
by the new authorities.
Sergei:
We still can return to Ukraine. That is, I’m willing to return
there to do one thing: to wipe out the sect that destroyed my
country.
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