Testimonies of Several Hundred Witnesses and 14 Self-Admitted Maidan Snipers

Abstract

This chapter analyzes interviews and statements in the Ukrainian and other media and social media after the Maidan massacre of the Maidan protesters and the police by several hundred witnesses, primarily eyewitnesses among Maidan activists and journalists, concerning Maidan snipers, snipers in the Maidan-controlled buildings, and other evidence of the false-flag massacre in downtown Kyiv in Ukraine on February 18–20, 2014. It also examines interviews and statements by 14 self-admitted members of Maidan sniper groups, in particular, about shooting the police and the protesters in various media and the social media. Many Maidan activists and self-admitted snipers publicly stated that they witnessed involvement of specific top Maidan leaders from the oligarchic parties and far-right organizations in the massacre.

This chapter analyzes interviews and statements in the Ukrainian and other media and social media after the Maidan massacre of the Maidan protesters and the police by several hundred witnesses, primarily eyewitnesses among Maidan activists and journalists, concerning Maidan snipers, snipers in the Maidan-controlled buildings, and other evidence of the false-flag massacre in downtown Kyiv in Ukraine on February 18–20, 2014. It also examines interviews and statements by 14 self-admitted members of Maidan sniper groups, in particular, about shooting the police and the protesters in various media and the social media. Many Maidan activists and self-admitted snipers publicly stated that they witnessed involvement of specific top Maidan leaders from the oligarchic parties and far-right organizations in the massacre. There are no such specific public testimonies or admissions by Yanukovych government leaders and commanders and members of the Berkut police, the Security Service of Ukraine, and the Internal Troops concerning involvement of the government forces and officials in the massacre. There are also no corroborated witness testimonies about specific involvement of then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, his government ministers, commanders, in the massacre of the Maidan activists, including massacre orders.

4.1 Testimonies by Over 300 Witnesses Concerning Maidan Snipers

Over 300 other witnesses testified after the Maidan massacre in the various Ukrainian and other media and social media about Maidan snipers and snipers in the Maidan-controlled locations or about involvement of the specific leaders of the Maidan oligarchic and far-right opposition. They include over 100 video testimonies about such snipers in numerous TV reports and social media, such as YouTube (see Video, 2023b). The government investigation in Ukraine denied that there were any snipers, who were located in Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled locations and who massacred the Maidan activists,

The witness testimonies examined in this chapter do not include over 100 other witness interviews and statements, which were made in the media and the social media during the massacre itself, concerning snipers in the Maidan-controlled buildings and areas (see Chapter 3). They also do not include Maidan massacre trial and investigation testimonies concerning snipers in the Maidan-controlled buildings and areas by the absolute majority of 172 Maidan protesters, who were wounded on February 20, 2014, and close to 100 of such testimonies by the prosecution, defense, and Maidan victims’ witnesses at this trial and investigation in Ukraine (see Chapter 5).

Two leaders of the far-right Svoboda Party stated in their separate interviews that a Western government representative told them and other Maidan leaders a few weeks before the massacre that Western governments would turn on the Yanukovych government after casualties among protesters would reach 100. Oleh Tiahnybok, who headed this far-right party and was one of the leaders of the Maidan, said that when he asked that “we have four victims, why is there no reaction?” the Western representative responded that “this is not enough” and that “we will be able to react when there are 100 victims” (Braty, 2017, 94).

Ruslan Koshulynsky, deputy leader of the Svoboda Party and the deputy head of the Ukrainian parliament, made similar statement concerning the discussion of this issue:

They talked about the first deaths - well, 5, 20... 100? When will the authorities be guilty? In the end, they reached the figure of one hundred. There was no pressure. There were no sanctions. They waited until a mass murder. And if there is a mass murder in the country - the authorities are to blame, because they crossed the line, the authorities cannot allow mass murders. (Braty, 2017, 94)

Such specific conditionality created rational incentives to “sacrifice” 100 protesters and attributed their killing to the government forces. The killed protesters were called Heavenly Hundred immediately after the massacre. Protesters and people who were not even on the Maidan or died from illnesses, suicide, and other causes were included in the Heavenly Hundred to bring the number of victims to 100.

The Western governments almost immediately after the Maidan massacre blamed the Yanukovych government and his forces for this mass killing and recognized the new Maidan government. Biden (2017) in his memoir described making a call to Yanukovych “when his snipers were assassinating Ukrainian citizens by the dozens” to tell him to “call off his gunmen and walk away” and that “the disgraced president fled Ukraine the next day.” Yanukovych signed a deal with the Maidan opposition leaders and representatives of France, Germany, and Poland on February 21. The deal would have kept him in office with significantly reduced power before the early presidential election. It also specified to conduct an investigation of the Maidan massacre with international involvement. However, the deal was immediately violated by the Maidan opposition, which seized the central government offices in Kyiv, and by France, Germany, and Poland, which recognized the new Maidan government.

The majority of a few hundred testimonies after the Maidan massacre by witnesses, primarily Maidan protesters, in the media, social media, concerning snipers in Maidan-controlled buildings and areas during the Maidan massacre, are by direct eyewitnesses and by Maidan activists and Western and Ukrainian journalists. Many of them also stated that Maidan leaders knew in advance about the massacre and that snipers were located in the Music Conservatory, Hotel Ukraina, and at least 18 other buildings in the Maidan-controlled areas and shot protesters and police from there. Several Maidan protesters testified that some of the snipers were captured by Maidan protesters but were then released by Maidan leaders (Video, 2023b).

At least 10 Maidan politicians and activists publicly testified that they witnessed the involvement of specific top Maidan leaders from oligarchic parties and far-right organizations in the massacre, such as their advance knowledge of the massacre, deployment of snipers, evacuation of snipers who were captured by Maidan protesters, and cover-up of such snipers. They include members of the Maidan and Right Sector leadership, the Maidan Self-Defense commanders, Right Sector activists, and other Maidan activists.

For example, David Zhvania, who headed a parliamentary committee at the time of the massacre and was a member of the Maidan leadership, stated that the Maidan leaders, whom he named in his videos, “arranged” the Maidan massacre, that they wanted to seize power in Ukraine. He said that the Maidan opposition leaders knew in advance about the Maidan massacre and called their members of the parliament before the massacre not to go to the Maidan so that they would not be killed. David Zhvania stated that he along with Maidan leaders were members of “the organized criminal group” which used the Maidan to seize power in Ukraine for personal enrichment. He said that they financed the Maidan, used media to escalate the Maidan protests, broke attempts of peaceful resolution of the conflict by the incumbent government, and conducted negotiations with foreign embassies (see Pravda, 2020a; Video 2023b, 01:07).

Zhvania stated that he along with Poroshenko, Turchynov, Yatseniuk, and Klitschko used the Maidan protesters as “extras” to seize power in Ukraine and called this “a coup” (Pravda, 2020b). He said that the Maidan leaders decided in January 2014 to seize power in Ukraine and that he was personally involved in forcing then Prime Minister Mykola Azarov to resign to clear them a path to power after their intended removal of Yanukovych. Zhvania also said that the parliament’s vote to remove Yanukovych was manipulated because Maidan leaders obtained from the secretariat duplicate cards of absent deputies and cast their votes. He was a close associate of Poroshenko and one of the leaders of his election team during the 2014 parliamentary elections.

David Zhvania stated in his letter to the State Bureau of Investigations of Ukraine that Maidan leaders were organizers of the Maidan massacre. He said that one of the Maidan leaders started to kill people on the Maidan and that money and weapons for the Maidan “coup” were channeled through the Lithuanian Embassy and Diamantbank, which Zhvania owned. He said that he had documents supporting his statements and was ready to testify to the Ukrainian prosecutors concerning these statements (Pravda, 2020c).

Nadia Savchenko, a member of the parliament from the Fatherland Party, stated that she witnessed in the morning of February 20 an arrival of a group of Maidan protesters armed with hunting rifles near the Maidan stage and that they became members of the Ukrainian parliament after the Maidan. She said that she later witnessed armed Maidan activists entering a Hotel Ukraina elevator. Savchenko also said that she witnessed as one of the Maidan leaders brought the snipers to Hotel Ukraina and that she saw gunshots from Hotel Ukraina (see Ukrayina, 2018; Telekanal, 2017; Video, 2023b, 11:04).

Andrii Artemenko, a Right Sector sponsor during the Maidan massacre, stated that he and other Right Sector activists found and photographed three positions of snipers and their exit routes, and that the Maidan leadership released one of these snipers, who was found there. He said that these positions were located in a building in the rear of the Music Conservatory, on the sixth floor in an abandoned building between the Dnipro Hotel and Ukrkoopspilka building, and on the roof of the Ukrainian House. The first two positions of Maidan snipers were also identified in various publicly available sources. The location of the sniper position on the roof of the Ukrainian House was previously mentioned in media interviews and social media by an ex-leader of the neo-Nazi White Hammer, which was a part of the Right Sector during the massacre. Artemenko offered an independent confirmation of this testimony. Artemenko said that he has photos of these sniper positions, bullet casings found there, that his testimony can be confirmed by other witnesses that he can name, and that other Maidan protesters witnessed snipers leaving their positions (see Telekanal, 2018; Video, 2023b, 48:09).

This ex-Right Sector sponsor and an ex-member of the Ukrainian parliament suggested that the Maidan opposition leadership brought “snipers” because Maidan leaders benefited from the massacre by obtaining power in Ukraine. Artemenko also stated that Andrii Parubii, the head of the Maidan Self-Defense, planned to seize the Ukrainian parliament and the Cabinet of Ministers headquarters during the “Peaceful March” on February 18, 2014, and that Serhiy Pashynsky, another Maidan leader from then Fatherland Party, planned a seizure of a police weapons depot in Kyiv to get arms. He said that he met with both of them then. Artemenko also said that the Right Sector leader also discussed then how to get weapons and that the Right Sector was involved in appointment of the Maidan government after the massacre. This Maidan politician said that he got information about formations of sniper groups by specific Maidan leaders, one of whom became the head of the parliament during the Poroshenko presidency, from meetings with them during the Maidan massacre (see Video, 2023b). Artemenko is a dual Ukrainian and Canadian citizen, and he lived in an exile in Washington DC after he was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship and membership in the parliament. Neither the US nor Canadian media reported any of his statements concerning the Maidan massacre and the violent overthrow of the Ukrainian government.

A Maidan protester stated that he, along with other protesters, captured five snipers in room 211 on the second floor of Hotel Ukraina. He said that they were paid money, ordered to kill protesters, and shot from that room. He noted that these snipers surrendered and laid their weapons when his group of Maidan activists came and that they were transferred to a Maidan leader, but since then, the Maidan leaders, who became senior officials, have refused to disclose any information about them (Serhiy, 2014).

A Maidan Self-Defense commander stated that 15 “snipers” were captured on the roofs of buildings by the Maidan Self-Defense and Maidan activists. He said that one of them fell from a bank building after he was wounded by a veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. He stated that this wounded and injured sniper was captured there along with two other snipers, who were on the roof of Bank. This activist said that he helped to carry him to the Trade Union building for medical help but that he died in a few hours (News-Front, 2015; Video, 2023b).

In a leaked intercepted telephone call with the EU foreign affairs head, the Estonian minister of foreign affairs referred to Olha Bohomolets, one of the Maidan doctors, pointing during his visit to Ukraine to similarity of the wounds among the protesters and policemen, which served as an indication that the massacre was organized by some elements of the Maidan opposition (Michael, 2014). Because their wounds had the same distinctive features, this meant that both the police and the protesters were shot by the same “snipers.” The Estonian Foreign Minister confirmed the authenticity of this call.

While Bohomolets, who was a coordinator of the Maidan medics during the massacre, publicly denied saying this, she confirmed meeting the Estonian Foreign Minister. Her public denial of her private admission of the involvement of the Maidan elements in the massacre would be in her political and rational self-interest. Oleh Musiy, who headed the Maidan medics during the massacre and became the health minister after the Maidan, confirmed in his Associated Press interview that similarity of bullet wounds of Maidan activists and police, whom he treated (Danilova, 2014). And Bohomolets stated that a group of protesters came around 1:00 pm to Hotel Ukraina and told her that a sniper was shooting from the hotel. They threatened to burn the hotel to prevent the sniper from shooting and found a sniper position in the hotel (Newsone, 2018; Video 2023b, 47:13–48:09).

In addition, a Maidan protester from the Volyn Region said in his interview to a local news site that Maidan snipers were given automatic assault rifles and sniper rifles and shot Maidan activists in the back. He also said that people close to the Maidan opposition reported that snipers of two Maidan leaders (Poroshenko and Parubii) were shooting from the Trade Union building. He stated that he was wounded during the Maidan massacre on Instytutska Street and that there were snipers shooting at both the police and the protesters (Volynianyn, 2017).

The commander of the 26th company of the Maidan Self-Defense, who was in March–August 2014 an adviser to the Maidan head of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (Andrii Parubii), said that he had access after the Maidan in 2014 to the materials of the government investigations of the Maidan massacre and conducted his own investigation. He stated that the materials of the government investigation and his own investigation showed that there were “third forces,” which shot both Maidan protesters and the police, and that different firing positions of these forces included Hotel Ukraina and Horodetsky Street. He suggested that the third forces are linked to the Maidan leadership. The senior Maidan Self-Defense commander specifically stated that these snipers shot both the protesters and the police, massacred a significant part of the Maidan activists, and were linked to the Maidan opposition. He said that the Maidan opposition needed such “sacred victims” in order to gain power (SVII, 2019, 1:37:45; 2023). Such statements are against his political self-interest since he was a senior Maidan Self-Defense commander from the Lviv Region, continues to support the Maidan, and expresses radical nationalist views.

Several Maidan activists, including from the far-right, stated that the Maidan opposition leaders, including the neo-Nazi C14 and the Right Sector leaders, knew in advance about this mass killing. Such advanced knowledge implies that the massacre was planned by the elements of the Maidan opposition, including the far-right.

Zhvania said that the Maidan leaders knew in advance about the Maidan massacre. He said that they warned in phone calls to their members of the parliament in advance of the massacre not to go to the Maidan so that they would not be killed and continue voting in the parliament (see Video, 2023b).

Mustafa Nayem, who with his Facebook post formally initiated the EuroMaidan mass protests against the suspension of the EU association and free trade agreement by Yanukovych in November 2013 and became a member of the parliament from the Poroshenko Bloc after the Maidan, wrote that there were people on the Maidan who knew about the Maidan massacre in advance. Nayem also revealed that an organizer and leader of a group of “titushki,” who are charged with beating and killing a Vesti journalist near Maidan on February 18, 2014, in fact worked in the security company which guarded a bank of one of Fatherland Party and Maidan leaders and was a friend of a former member of the Poroshenko faction in the parliament (Nayem, 2018). This member of the Fatherland Party leadership during the Maidan became the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, and he changed charges against this “titushki” leader from murder to hooliganism, and the court in this case gave him a suspended sentence in December 2017. Mustafa Nayem stated in parliament that both this “titushki” organizer and his friend knew in advance about the Maidan massacre. This “friend” at that time headed a bank, which was Bank of this Fatherland Party leading member. He became a member of the Poroshenko faction in the parliament and the governor of the Mykolaiv Region after the Maidan. In his 24 TV channel interview, Nayem revealed that this “titushki” group organizer testified during investigation that he was in fact not on the Yanukovych side but on the Maidan side and that this was his job (24TV, 2018). This is consistent with various evidence that the Maidan massacre was a false-flag mass killing with involvement of the elements of the Maidan leadership, in particular, from then the Fatherland Party.

A Maidan protester said that he learned that the Right Sector members were absent during the massacre, because they received advance warning from their leadership (Novyk, 2014). The former leader of the Right Sector in the Sviatoshyn District in Kyiv also suggested that there was such a Right Sector order (RPS, 2015). The Right Sector leader stated that he ordered unarmed Right Sector members to avoid the Maidan after the massacre started because the shooting from the Music Conservatory targeted the Maidan activists. However, he claimed, contrary to the definite evidence, that the Music Conservatory was in a grey zone even though he admitted that he went himself to the Conservatory at that time from a new Right Sector headquarters in the KyivStar building nearby (Braty, 2017, 203).

A leading member of C14, a Neo-Nazi affiliate of Svoboda Party, stated that the C14 leader told his C14-based company that he received information about the impending Maidan massacre and therefore he and his company took a refuge at the Canadian Embassy near the Maidan on February 18, 2014, and stayed there during the Maidan massacre (Lidera, 2017). The leader of the Svoboda-affiliated C14 admitted that his C14-based Maidan Self-Defense company took refuge in the Canadian embassy in Kyiv on February 18 and stayed there during the Maidan massacre (Sich, 2014). These statements are corroborated by the disappearance of the Right Sector and C14 activists from the Maidan shortly before the massacre and no single member of these far-right organizations and their Maidan companies was killed or wounded during the massacre.

The far-right Svoboda Party, a Maidan Self-Defense commander in the hotel, and the hotel staff stated that Hotel Ukraina was seized and guarded by the Maidan forces since the end of January 2014 or during the massacre (Video, 2023b). In its official statement, Svoboda stated that its activists took Hotel Ukraina under their control and guard on January 25, 2014: “Activists of the All-Ukrainian association “Svoboda” took the hotel “Ukraine” under the guard. At the moment, the hotel has been taken under the control of “Svoboda” activists, and it is operating as usual” (VO “Svoboda”, 2014). A similar statement was made by the Svoboda leader on the Maidan stage (VO «Svoboda», 2014). A BBC video showed a leading Svoboda activist along with a few Maidan protesters guarding the entrance to the stairways and elevators in the hotel shortly after 9:51 am (Video, 2023a, 36:50).

Mykola Romaniuk, a Maidan Self-Defense unit commander, said that he and more than dozen members of his unit guarded Hotel Ukraina entrance and checked bags of people entering the hotel since January 26, 2014. This matches the Svoboda statement. He said that he personally along with his unit guarded the hotel entrance and checked bags of people entering the hotel before, during, and after the Maidan massacre (Billy, 2014a; Video, 2023b). This Maidan activist was filmed during the massacre near the hotel entrance in BBC, Belgian RTBF, and other videos. However, he denied that any shooters were in the hotel. Such denial would be rational if the snipers in the hotel were from the Maidan forces.

Similarly, a senior Hotel Ukraina staff member stated that the Maidan protesters controlled this hotel before and during the massacre and that no police entered the hotel. This Hotel Ukraina manager said that during the massacre the hotel staff, Maidan protesters, and the Maidan Self-Defense checked all rooms but did not find any snipers there. She also stated that the Maidan Self-Defense was in the hotel since December 2013. She also denied that any snipers were there but said that there are bullet holes in windows in some 20 hotel rooms (Billy, 2014b). This is another indication that the Berkut and Omega targeted Maidan shooters at this hotel and that these shooters and their spotters and security were able to move freely to different floors and rooms (see Video, 2023b, 46:24). Another Hotel Ukraina staff member stated in his 1+1 TV interview that he witnessed three “snipers” with music instruments type weapon cases entering the hotel late on February 17 or early on February 18 when this hotel was in the area controlled by the Maidan Self-Defense (TSN, 2014a) (Fig. 4.1).

Fig. 4.1

(Photo by the author)

Hotel Ukraina

A few hundred witnesses stated after the massacre in media interviews and on the social media that they witnessed snipers in about 20 Maidan-controlled buildings and areas. Such locations included Hotel Ukraina, the Music Conservatory, Bank Arkada, Muzeinyi Lane 8 and 12 building, Horodetsky Street buildings between Hotel Ukraina and Bank Arkada, Hotel Kozatsky, Trade Union building, Zhovtnevyi Palace, and other locations.

Testimonies and analysis of various sources of evidence indicate that the cease-fire agreement was broken by the Maidan side in the early morning of February 20, when small groups of armed protesters started to shoot from the Music Conservatory building with live ammunition at the Berkut units besieging the protesters at Maidan. For example, a Maidan protester witnessed Maidan shooters entering the Music Conservatory on February 20. Police officers said that they noticed protesters with the Right Sector insignia in the Music Conservatory building on February 19 and that armed protesters took positions there (Beck-Hofmann, 2015). A policeman stated that the Right Sector occupied the second and third floors of the Music Conservatory in the evening of February 19 and that there was shooting at the police from there in the morning of February 20. A police officer said that three persons with weapons appeared on the second floor and the roof of the Music Conservatory (see Video, 2023b).

A senior Internal Troops officer stated that they had information that five “snipers” moved to the Music Conservatory from the Trade Union building after it was burned down by the protesters during Alfa’s attempt to seize it after 11:00 pm on February 18 (Fakty, 2014a, 2014b). He also confirmed that the shooters killed and wounded many policemen from the Trade Union building and Maidan tents when this building was occupied and used as the headquarters of the Maidan Self-Defense and the Right Sector (5 Kanal, 2014a). This senior police commander said that shooters were shooting from the Trade Union building, killing two Internal Troops members, and then moved to the Music Conservatory (Video, 2023b).

Two police officers stated that they came under gunfire from the Music Conservatory building (5 Kanal, 2014a). In a US-made documentary investigating the Maidan massacre, a Berkut member said that the shooting from the Music Conservatory building at their anti-riot police units began at 5:30 am on February 20 (Beck-Hofmann, 2015). A Berkut policeman stated that a few Berkut policemen were wounded on the Maidan after 3:30 am on February 20 and that the Berkut then found that the shooting was from the Music Conservatory from automatic firearms and that the shooters were from the Maidan side (Sharij, 2021). The Berkut policeman said that his unit was under gunfire by Maidan snipers from several positions for 40 minutes before Berkut retreated (NTS, 2014).

The Right Sector, an alliance of radical nationalist and neo-Nazi organizations and football ultras groups, took active part in the violent attacks on the presidential administration on December 1, 2013, and on the parliament in the end of January and on February 18, 2014. Shortly after midnight on February 20, Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of the Right Sector, announced that his organization did not accept a truce agreement with Yanukovych and would undertake decisive actions against the government forces (Pravyi, 2014). One of leaders of UNA-UNSO, which was a part of the Right Sector, admitted that he saw some 50 armed protesters in the underground area of Maidan in the morning of February 20 and also saw protesters shooting then in the police on the Maidan (Shvets, 2014).

Eyewitnesses among the Maidan protesters said that organized groups from the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions in Western Ukraine arrived at Maidan and moved to the Music Conservatory several hours after midnight on February 20, and that some of them were armed with rifles (UKRLIFE.TV, 2014). For example, one protester confirmed that the armed Maidan activists shot at the police from the Conservatory building (5 Kanal, 2014b). A Ukrainian journalist working for the German ARD TV reported on his Facebook page that a hotel room of a German ARD journalist in Hotel Ukraina was shot at from the direction of the Main Post Office, i.e., the Right Sector headquarters (Oleksiy, 2014).

Andrii Shevchenko, a parliament member from the Fatherland Party—one of the opposition “Euromaidan” parties—stated that he received a phone call from a Berkut commander shorty after 7:00 am that 11 members of his police unit were wounded by shooters from the Music Conservatory building (Koshkina, 2014). This Berkut commander soon again informed him that, within half an hour, his unit’s casualties increased to 21 wounded and three killed. This member of the parliament from the pro-Maidan Fatherland Party became the Ukrainian ambassador to Canada after the Maidan.

Evgeniy Maloletka, a Ukrainian photographer who became an Associated Press journalist and a winner of Oscar for the best documentary, stated in his BBC interview in 2015 that he saw armed men with guns, including a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a hunting rifle, in the Music Conservatory, just after 8:00 am on February 20. He photographed them and their firearms (Gatehouse, 2015; Video 2023b, 06:40). A TV reporter said that on the morning of the massacre he saw two snipers on the roof of the Music Conservatory firing in an Instytutska Street direction. Another journalist confirmed that journalist saw from his balcony a sniper on the roof of the Music Conservatory before the massacre and that this sniper made a warning gesture to leave the balcony (Video, 2023b).

These interviews are consistent with admissions in a BBC program and in Ukrainian media by three members of the far-right-linked special armed Maidan company that they shot at the police from the Music Conservatory. They are also consistent with prosecution charges of one of them with killing and wounding the police and with leaked interrogation of a Maidan activist who provided a hunting version of Kalashnikov to one of the Maidan snipers in the Music Conservatory. Similarly, photos and videos of Maidan snipers shooting the Berkut police from this Maidan-controlled building also corroborate these interviews (see Video, 2023a).

A Maidan stage announcer said that the commander of one of Maidan Self-Defense companies warned him on the stage about sniper gunfire from the roof of the Music Conservatory and Hotel Ukraina direction (Apostrof, 2021). Yevhen Chervonenko, a Ukrainian politician, said that the shooting started from Hotel Ukraina and the Kozatsky Hotel and that he saw that his and two other Maidan politicians’ bodyguard was shot from there based on the muzzle flash and the bullet. Mykola Katerynchuk, one of these two Maidan politicians, independently confirmed that he witnessed on February 18 that Maidan protesters were shot from Hotel Ukraina and the Kozatsky Hotel and people falling on the Maidan near him with gunshot wounds (Newsone, 2017; Shuster, 2015; Video 2023b).

In his interview, Anatolii Strelchenko, the commander of the Omega unit of the Internal Troops, stated that they knew on February 18, 2014, before the attempted attack of the parliament, that Maidan activists had firearms and that the Maidan shooters started to use live ammunition on that day. Specifically, he said that a member of his unit was wounded from a Makarov handgun, three Internal Troops soldiers were wounded by pellets from a hunting rifle shot, and there was a seriously wounded a Berkut officer by a gunshot (Khripun, 2015). The owner of a hunting rifle said in his interview that he participate in the violent clashes with police in that area on February 18, 2014, and was wounded there, and that he arrived on the Maidan with other hunters after hunting with his group of a few dozen “hunters” in Western Ukraine (Koshkina & Bazar, 2015).

In his speech on the third anniversary of the Maidan massacre, Petro Poroshenko, one of the Maidan leaders, admitted after he became president of Ukraine that Maidan protesters were shot from Hotel Ukraina, the Music Conservatory, and a building nearby (Ofіtzіine, 2017). Then a member of the Ukrainian parliament from the Maidan UDAR Party said that he lived in this hotel during the massacre and saw himself snipers shooting from the 12th floor of Hotel Ukraina when he was in his 9th floor hotel room (NASH, 2021).

Le Monde stated that there was no doubt for the Maidan protesters that “sniper fire was coming from the top of the hotel.” "For us, the building had become an adversary.” It quoted a pro-Maidan journalist Vitaly Portnikov, who “was in the crowd at the time” and admitted more than 10 years after the massacre that “this hotel scared us,” “it was like the eye of Sauron in Lord of the Rings” (Chemin, 2024).

Olena Bilozerska, a far-right blogger said that a sniper shot in a Zhovtnevyi Palace column just above her and a female medic but did not aim to kill them because the distance was short (Apostrof, 2021). In her blog post on the day of the massacre, she wrote that she saw snipers shooting from open windows of Hotel Ukraina and posted her photo of such open windows from the hotel side facing the Maidan and Zhovtnevyi Palace.¹

One of the leaders of the neo-Nazi White Hammer during the Maidan stated that he knows about three groups of Maidan snipers organized by Maidan leaders and the West. The White Hammer was one of the far-right organizations in the Right Sector during the Euromaidan.

He stated that he took part in seizure of the Ukrainian House in order to enable establishing there sniper positions for them and that such groups of Maidan snipers in the Kozatsky Hotel and the Ukrainian House shot at the police (NTV, 2016).

An SBU Alfa commander said in his Ukrainian media interview that when Alfa snipers located snipers preparing their position on a roof and reported this in their radio communication, these snipers moved away because they intercepted Alfa radio communication about their identification (Mihayluk, 2014). This matches testimonies of SBU Alfa snipers at the Maidan massacre trial about a sniper on the roof of the Ukrainian House.

A prominent Ukrainian journalist referred to testimonies about shooting from the Kozatsky Hotel on the Maidan. A Maidan Self-Defense member also said that there were snipers on Kozatsky Hotel and the Trade Union building (Hromadske, 2016). A Maidan protester stated that there were two positions of “snipers” in the Trade Union building and that they shot protesters in the back in the morning of February 20 (Ustym, 2014).

A member of the Ukrainian parliament stated in her speech in the parliament that there was a video of a shooter with a Kalashnikov shooting both protesters and the police from a roof of a building (Podrobnosti, 2014). A German blogger, who interviewed her, said that she referred to the Ukrkoopspilka building on the Maidan.

A Maidan activist stated that other protesters told him during the massacre that a sniper in Hotel Ukraina was shooting at both protesters and the Berkut police (Vladimir, 2014). Andrii Parubii, the commander of the Maidan Self-Defense during the Maidan, also admitted this. He said in his BBC interview that they found sniper positions and bullet casings in Hotel Ukraina. But like Musiy, he claimed that Russian snipers perpetrated the massacre (Video, 2023b, 49:55). This study has not found any evidence of Russian snipers on the Maidan during the massacre. The official investigation and the Maidan massacre trial verdict stated that the investigation determined that Russian agents were not involved in the massacre (see Chapter 8).

There are such eyewitness testimonies about Hotel Ukraina snipers by various foreign journalists. A Belgian VRT TV reporter stated that a bullet striking a tree near protesters in his widely broadcast video, which was filmed from Hotel Ukraina, was fired from behind the protesters (VRT 2015). An Italian photographer said that he witnessed shooting from the 5th or 6th floor of the Maidan-controlled Hotel Ukraina and that he filmed a Maidan protester who realized that the shooting was from the back (Maydan, 2018; Video, 2023b).

Similarly, a New York Times journalist tweeted on March 6, 2014: “Breakfast on the Maidan. In background is the Hotel Ukraine, from where snipers fired on opposition…” (C.J. Chivers, 2014). A CNN reporter said that the Maidan protesters were killed by snipers on Hotel Ukraina roof (CNN, 2014). This journalist suggested that they were government snipers, contrary to all the evidence. The official investigation, the Maidan massacre trial verdict, and this study did not reveal any evidence of government snipers in this hotel.

An ICTV journalist said that his Ukrainian TV channel filmed the video showing a sniper shooting from Hotel Ukraina window. He stated that at least one of the snipers was shooting from the top floors of this hotel (Fakty, 2021).

Another Belgian TV journalist says that there were armed people in Hotel Ukraina shortly after the shooting started in the morning. One person with an automatic assault rifle and in a helmet came to his hotel room saying “snipers.” A Polish TV journalist also stated that an armed person in a helmet came to his Hotel Ukraina room and asked who was there. He also said that his hotel room was thoroughly searched in the evening. Both journalists do not mention any uniforms or government forces affiliation of these armed people in the hotel (Maydan, 2019; Video, 2023b).

The ZDF correspondent Britta Hilpert said that the protesters broke into their Hotel Ukraina room and then were shooting. The ZDF correspondent said that the armed Maidan activists stopped their shooting from the ZDF hotel room when their commander came, and that he was angry and commanded the shooters to stop and move because “the press should not be drawn into it” (ZDF, 2014). She referred to the ZDF video which shows Volodymyr Parasiuk retrieving his armed company members from the room of Hotel Ukraina at 10:22 am.

Several wounded Maidan protesters also stated in the media and social media that snipers in Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled locations were shooting them and other Maidan protesters or that they witnessed snipers there. Since the absolute majority of the wounded Maidan activists testified the same at the Maidan massacre trial and the investigation, this suggests that many wounded protesters and the media simply did not report publicly such evidence of the false-flag Maidan massacre.

For example, Serhiy Trapezun stated in his Ukrainian TV interview that he and other Maidan protesters in the same group did not expect that they would be shot in the back (TSN, 2014b). In his another interview, he showed a bullet impact mark in the spot that Ushnevych was killed when their group took cover behind the wall, which shielded them from Berkut in front (Fakty, 2016). Trapezun also said that there was a talk that Ushnevych was shot from a handgun from bushes near Arkada and that he himself was wounded not by Berkut but by a “sniper” from Hotel Ukraina or a building nearby (Oleksandr, 2016). He pointed out that the snipers, who shot him and other protesters, were located in a sector ranging from Hotel Ukraina to Bank Arkada, and included also Horodetsky Street buildings in between them. Trapezun said that he saw flashes in a hotel window on the fourth floor when he fell on the ground, and he pointed towards a Hotel Ukraina room as a location of the shooter (Fakty, 2016). He gave a similar testimony for the official investigation. In his Israeli media interview during his medical treatment there, Trapezun said that he saw snipers shooting at the Maidan activists from Hotel Ukraina roof and from a hotel room (Slutskaya, 2014). In his ICTV interview, he indicated that Roman Varenytsia was shot dead from a similar direction (Fakty, 2016).

Volodymyr Honcharovsky, who was wounded in his back when he was filmed in Zelenyi Front video at 9:50 am, stated in his interview from a German hospital that the protesters there were shot from behind and that he himself was wounded in the back, i.e., from Maidan-controlled areas, such as Hotel Ukraina and Zhovtnevyi Palace. Nobody was charged with his attempted murder (Art, 2014).

Roman Tityk who was in that group that was massacred there said in his interview that some suspicious people among the protesters, specifically the person in black, tried to lure them to the place where they were killed and wounded (Pol'sha, 2014). The same protestor in black and with the gas mask was seen in 10:18–10:19 am while running with members of the far-right-linked group of snipers into Hotel Ukraina (AFP, 2014; Video, 2023a). In a documentary and his interview, a Maidan activist from the Lviv Region identified himself as that person. But he claimed that he went first ahead because he wanted to see positions from which the fire was coming after many protesters were massacred in the same area and on the opposite side of the street, and he denied that there were any shooters at the hotel in spite that many protesters in that group stated the opposite (UKRLIFE.TV, 2014). The insider knowledge of actual snipers and the knowledge of snipers in the Maidan positions about this luring make this seemingly irrational behavior rational.

Anton Lubianytsky, who was filmed in the same video being shot when he was running to the wall at 9:50 am, said in his Ukrainian 1+1 TV channel interview that one of the shots that wounded him there came from Hotel Ukraina, while another was from the opposite direction, such as Bank Arkada (TSN, 2014c). Oleh Sukhinsky, who was also filmed by BBC and in other videos right before and right after his wounding, said that he saw that he was shot from Hotel Ukraina (Stulen’ et al., 2014).

Yuri Kravchuk showed in his Ukrainian TV interview that he was wounded in his right hand when his hand was behind a tree and that this made it physically impossible to make such a shot from Berkut positions in front. He said that the gunshot came from a Bank Arkada direction because of the wound location and pieces of his jacket that he then saw flying in front of his eyes (Fakty, 2016; Video, 2023b, 34:48–35:11).

Roman Kotliarevsky, the wounded Maidan medic, said that his position at the moment of his shooting and a steep wound in the side back area of his right thigh indicated that he was shot from Bank Arkada or a roof of one of the buildings there, i.e., on Horodetsky Street (Vagner, 2015). He also stated that he was wounded with 7.62 mm bullet and that the investigation in his shooting was dragged out and that no specific suspects were identified.

Similarly, several relatives of the killed Maidan protesters testified about Hotel Ukraina snipers. The head of the organization of families of the Maidan victims of this massacre stated that Vasyl Aksenin, his father, was killed from Hotel Ukraina and showed that his father was shot there in the right side at a steep direction from this hotel. Mother of Eduard Hrynevych said that snipers were shooting from above when he went to attack the Berkut police. A Volyn TV documentary that included her interview stated, presumably based on information provided by Maidan protesters, that he was killed by a sniper from Hotel Ukraina (Suspilʹne, 2016).

Wife of Volodymyr Melnychuk said in her BBC and Ukrainian TV interviews that she witnessed his killing. She said that he was shot from Hotel Ukraina based on the source of the gunshot sound. A sister of Leonid Poliansky, a killed Maidan protester, said that the trial documents show that he was killed from the 6th floor of Hotel Ukraina (Suspilʹne, 2021).

His son stated based on evidence that he collected that his father, Serhii Bondarchuk, might have been killed in the back from Hotel Ukraina, and that the investigation, which concluded that he was shot with a 7.62 mm caliber bullet, did not want to consider this location of the shooters (Chimiris, 2014a). His story was featured in the Reuters report concerning the government investigation of the massacre, but the location of the shooters in the hotel was not mentioned in the Reuters story (Stecklow & Akymenko, 2014).

Father of Ustym Holodniuk, a former policeman, initially stated that his investigation based on measurements of shooting and position of the body and wounds pointed towards a gunshot from Zhovtnevyi Palace. He also concluded that the protesters were lured to the spot of their execution and that this was a professionally organized operation but blamed the former government for the massacre (Nebesna, 2015a).

Similarly, some of the protestors, who witnessed the killings and brought their killed and wounded counterparts to the hotel, publicly stated that they knew about snipers in Hotel Ukraina at the time of the massacre. For example, Andrii Ostrozhny said that the snipers from this hotel were shooting to prevent them from evacuating protesters who were shot. He was filmed in various videos and photos carrying the shot protesters to the hotel from at least 9:55 am till most of the killings were over. Ostrozhny also confirmed that snipers were killing the protesters from Zhovtnevyi Palace and the top of the Arkada building (Mityasova et al., 2014).

Oleh Tomashschuk said that he witnessed snipers shooting from Hotel Ukraina when he helped to carry a wounded protestor. This was at 10:13 am based on the content of the Zelenyi Front video which shows him in a blue helmet doing this. In a German ARD Monitor interview, Mykola Tokar said that the protesters near the Berkut barricade came under fire from eight or nine floor of Hotel Ukraina (Todesschüsse, 2014). He was filmed in that area of the killings in the Zelenyi Front video before and after 10:20 am (see Video, 2023a).

A Maidan nurse said that a Maidan activist warned her about a sniper in a window of Hotel Ukraina. He told her that he saw this sniper shooting. She said that he helped her to cross the Instytutska Street and away from the area of shooting by the snipers, and that this activist was Vitalii Markiv (Hromadske, 2020). He was later sentenced in Italy for killing an Italian journalist in the war in Donbas but released on appeal and returned to Ukraine following a public campaign led by the Ukrainian government.

Volodymyr Pastushok, a fellow member of the Volhynian company of the Maidan Self-Defense, said that Oleksandr Khrapachenko was killed by a sniper from Hotel Ukraina with a rifle bullet (UKRLIFE.TV, 2014). He was photographed next to Khrapachenko at the moment of his killing and testified at the Maidan massacre trial. Pastushok stated that investigators said that they lost his initial testimony and tried him to change it and to say that Khrapachenko was shot not from Hotel Ukraina but he refused (Nataliya, 2014a).

A Maidan medic stated in a 5 Kanal TV documentary that several snipers on the roof of Hotel Ukraina shot at the protesters in front of Zhovtnevyi Palace (5 Kanal, 2014a). This medic was filmed in that area during the massacre. He also stated that the protesters were shot by expanding bullets. Another Maidan protester said in an STB TV interview that snipers shot from Hotel Ukraina (see Video, 2023b).

A testimony by a member of the Volhynian Company of the Maidan Self-Defense reported direction of wounds, and time-stamped photos show that Oleksandr Khrapachenko from this unit was killed and another person wounded at 11:27 am near the Berkut barricade on Instytutska Street by shots fired from Hotel Ukraina. The report by Maidan NGOs and lawyers stated that the government investigation named Khrapachenko as one of at least three protesters killed from this hotel. Mother of Viktor Smolensky said that, based on information that she received, he was also killed from Hotel Ukraina (Hromads'ke, 2015).

Another Ukrainian Maidan supporter showed in his YouTube video that the shooting was from Hotel Ukraina (Hrazhdanin, 2015). Maidan protesters, who were near Maksym Shymko during his killing near Hotel Ukraina, said that he was shot by a sniper from a roof (TK, 2020). A female Ukrainian journalist showed in her Argentinian TV interview that there were snipers on the roof of Hotel Ukraina (Televisión, 2015). A female Maidan activist in her Bild interview also noted that snipers shot from the roof of Hotel Ukraina. A Maidan protester said that Maidan activists were constantly looking for snipers on this hotel during the massacre and noticed movement there (see Video, 2023b).

A Maidan protester showed a bullet hole in a shield of another protester and stated that this activist was shot from a top and a side direction from Hotel Ukraina (Ivanna, 2014a). A description by an eyewitness about a protester killed in his head from Hotel Ukraina matches the place, the time, and circumstances of the Nazar Voitovych killing. The same eyewitness, who was filmed in various videos during the massacre in those areas with a candle in his hand, said that he saw four protesters killed in that area of Instytutska Street and two others killed near a stairway leading to Zhovtnevyi Palace. In another interview, he stated that the protesters were mostly shot from high positions, such as Hotel Ukraina (Fakty ICTV, 2014a).

Another Maidan activist eyewitness testified that he saw a few protesters shot by “a sniper” from a Hotel Ukraina window. He said that he saw muzzle flashes and window curtains moving in this window during the gunshots. He pointed to a window in the same hotel room, which was identified by the government investigation as being occupied by a Svoboda deputy and from which ICTV and BBC showed snipers shooting the Maidan activists. The location of snipers there is also independently confirmed by yet another Maidan activist (Ivanna, 2014b; Video, 2023b, 27:26).

There are similar interviews by Maidan activists, including wounded, and by journalists about snipers in Bank Arkada, Zhovtnevyi Palace, and other Maidan-controlled locations. A member of the Maidan Self-Defense showed that the shooting was from Hotel Ukraina, Zhovtnevyi Palace, a Hrushevsky/Muzeiny streets buildings direction, and from a direction that matches Bank Arkada (Ukrinform, 2014). A Maidan protester, an Afghanistan war veteran, pointed out in his Spiegel interview locations of snipers in Hotel Ukraina, the Music Conservatory, and Zhovtnevyi Palace. He noted that the gunshots had “whipping” sound which did not match Kalashnikov shots but rifle shots (Spiegel, 2014).

A protester suggested that he was wounded from a Bank Arkada direction and from Hotel Ukraina. Another protester pointed out in a German documentary that there were “snipers” on Hotel Ukraina (Nebesna, 2015b). Volodymyr Shulhan testified that he and other Maidan activists realized during their advance that “a sniper” was shooting at them from the top of Hotel Ukraina after a protester next to him was killed and another wounded. He said that this protester was killed in the head near stairs to Zhovtnevyi Palace, and another was wounded in the right shoulder before Ihor Dmytriv was killed (Kalus'ke, 2014). Mykhailo Khomik, who is seen in the videos at the place and time of the killing of Ihor Dmytriv, stated that Dmytriv was shot from this hotel (Maydan, 2014).

Maksym Hoshovsky, a Maidan activist, who was filmed in many videos of the massacre with a Ukrainian flag on his shoulders, stated that one of the “snipers” was at the top of Bank Arkada building, which also includes an entrance to the subway. He stated that he saw one sniper shooting at the protestors from Arkada (Svobodacom, 2015). A Maidan Self-Defense member interviewed by an Irish TV correspondent in Hotel Ukraina said that he saw three protesters killed from the roof of a metro station, which is located in the same building as Arkada bank (Snipers, 2014).

As other testimonies of the Maidan activists and videos show, the Maidan Self-Defense specifically checked Zhovtnevyi Palace for any snipers after the Berkut company’s retreat shortly before and minutes after these “snipers” appeared there but reported that there were none. For instance, this was stated by Hoshovsky, who was filmed in various videos in that area in the beginning of the massacre, and by a Polish reporter who filmed inside this building and on the roof and interviewed Maidan protesters within minutes after the snipers or spotters were located there and protesters were killed from Zhovtnevyi (Hoshovskyy, 2016). Many eyewitnesses among the Maidan protesters reported presence of at least three snipers on Zhovtnevyi Palace roof and its upper floor (UKRLIFE.TV, 2014).

A Maidan activist stated in his Radio Svoboda interview that the first Maidan protesters were massacred by snipers in Bank Arkada and that protesters were also shot in the back from Hotel Ukraina (Radio, 2014a). Another Maidan activist showed that protesters hiding behind a wall near Bank Arkada were shot from the back. He pointed out that shooters from Zhovtnevyi Palace were killing wounded protesters during their evacuation. He showed also locations of snipers at the top of Bank Arkada and Hotel Ukraina (Wounded, 2014a). Another Maidan protester stated that there were “snipers” in both Zhovtnevyi Palace and Hotel Ukraina. He said that they were shooting from a hotel room and changing their positions in the hotel (Video, 2023b, 34:15).

There were several other Maidan protesters publicly reporting snipers shooting protesters from Bank Arkada building in their media interviews or on social media. For instance, Mark Paslawsky, a Ukrainian diaspora graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, in his twitter posts during the massacre mentioned witnessing snipers at both Bank Arkada and Hotel Ukraina shooting many protesters (Paslawsky, 2014a, 2014b). A lawyer for the killed protesters confirmed that there was evidence of the shooting from Bank Arkada, but the government investigation denied that there were any snipers there (Utro, 2014).

Similarly, a Polish TVP journalist based in 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. The TVP journalist said that snipers in Bank Arkada were shooting the protesters and that he saw many protesters shot there (Po, 2014). Two Maidan protesters pointed out locations of snipers on the roof of Horodetsky Street buildings. Another Maidan protester from the Volyn Region referred to a sniper in a building under construction in the Hrushevsky Street (Muzeinyi Lane) area (Nataliya, 2014b; Video, 2023b).

Olesya Zhukovska, a female Maidan medic, showed her entry wound location and her position during her reported wounding on the Maidan. The locations of entry and exit wounds and her location and the position that she showed in her NTV and other TV interviews indicate that she was shot from the Main Post Office, which was the Right Sector headquarters (Sukhanov, 2015). However, a Ukrainian journalist stated that the wounding was staged. This Ukrainian journalist reported that a Maidan activist informed him that her wounding was staged by the Maidan Self-Defense leadership. Zhukovska de facto admitted in a prank phone call by this journalist, who told her that he was calling on behalf of the former Maidan Self-Defense head Parubii, that she was not wounded and that her surgery was misrepresented as her wound (TK Media, 2020). The prosecution did not charge anyone for wounding this female medic, and the Maidan massacre trial refused to classify her as a victim (see Video, 2023b and this chapter).

This is consistent with her tweet before the Maidan massacre that she was hospitalized, and her statements that she did not notice that she was shot through her neck and not falling from the supposed bullet impact and tweeting right after this. This is also consistent with her wound size and shape which looked in TV reports and photos like surgical and not a large exit bullet wound and with her tweeting and giving numerous interviews within a day of the massacre.

This famous Maidan female medic was turned into the Maidan “icon” by the Ukrainian and Western media and politicians. Her wounding was publicized by numerous Ukrainian and Western media and attributed to the government snipers or the Berkut police. She tweeted that she was dying two minutes after her staged wounding. This tweet was retweeted almost 5 thousand times and was reported at face value by the major media in many countries (Zhukovskaya, 2014).

A Maidan protester stated in his Radio Svoboda interview that he and other protesters came under fire from Hotel Ukraina when they were evacuating wounded protesters. He was filmed in several videos doing such an evacuation during the Maidan massacre. He showed that the snipers shot at them from a top left part of this hotel. He pointed out that they came under crossfire from Bank Arkada, Hotel Ukraina, and the Cabmin Club (Lashchenko, 2014; Video, 2023b, 38:38). Yet another Maidan activist, who filmed the start of the massacre, showed locations of snipers in Bank Arkada, Hotel Ukraina, and Muzeinyi Lane buildings (Video, 2014, 2023a).

Oleksandr Tonsky also showed that he was wounded from a building on Muzeinyi Lane, 12 (Okhrimenko, 2014). A video operator stated that gunshots were reported from the same Muzeinyi Lane building (Nikita, 2014). Serhiy Asavalyuk, a senior police commander, stated that their snipers were deployed on the Instytutska Street after appearance of unidentified persons with weapons. He is not charged with any involvement in the Maidan massacre.

A Ukraina TV journalist, who filmed the Berkut special company members and members of other government forces units there, said in his media interview that they reported of being under fire from Hotel Ukraina and that government snipers arrived after their request for help (Telekanal, 2015). Anatoliy Strelchenko, the Omega special Internal Troops unit commander, stated that his unit of government snipers arrived to check for snipers in Hotel Ukraina and to neutralize them. The Omega commander pointed out that the Cabmin Club next to the Berkut barricade also came under fire, most likely from Zhovtnevyi Palace but also possibly from Hotel Ukraina. He is also not charged with the Maidan massacre. But the Ukraina TV video, which was filmed by this journalist and showed the Omega commander and the Omega unit of snipers, was posted on this journalist’s YouTube channel with the title “Death Squad” (Roman, 2014).

In his Ukrainian media interview, this commander of Omega unit of the Internal Troops confirmed that they had information and observed themselves that on February 20 both Maidan protesters and the police were killed and wounded from Hotel Ukraina. He also confirmed that the shooters and spotters were also stationed in the Music Conservatory, Zhovtnevyi Palace, Kinopalats, Muzeinyi Lane, and other nearby buildings controlled by the Maidan. He stated that his Omega unit observed Maidan activists armed with hunting rifles and Kalashnikovs in these areas, and it came under live ammunition fire. The Omega commander also confirmed that groups of the Maidan protesters started first using live ammunition during the “peaceful march” on February 18 and that the fire in the Trade Union building on the Maidan started on the floors controlled by the Right Sector (Khripun, 2015).

The Omega commander and an Internal Troops commander in charge of such special units stated that they received orders to target snipers at Hotel Ukraina and other locations and had permission to shoot at armed protesters (Fakty ICTV, 2014c, 2014d). 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 Hotel Ukraina (Sergienko, 2014).

A senior Berkut commander stated that hired shooters shot from Hotel Ukraina and the Music Conservatory and that he himself was wounded (24 Kanal, 2014). He is not charged with involvement in the massacre. Similarly, commander of the Alfa snipers unit of the Security Service of Ukraine said that they observed people on the roofs of Hotel Ukraina and Zhovtnevyi Palace during the massacre. They also observed and reported people, who apparently covertly carried weapons in various places. He said that his Alfa unit of snipers noticed gunshot impacts on the roofs, probably warning shots by other government units, when people were moving there. This commander of the Alfa snipers identified Hotel Ukraina as the most likely location of the shooters (Tvi, 2014). The government investigation determined that this unit did not massacre the Maidan protesters.

Similarly, then the head of the Donetsk SBU Alfa during the Maidan said that during the massacre they received information that snipers in buildings surrounding the Maidan and Maidan barricades were shooting Maidan protesters. He stated that afterwards they received information that the head of the Maidan Self-Defense and a future member of the Ukrainian parliament led some persons into the buildings to take positions on the roofs and then evacuated them. He also confirmed that the SBU Alfa snipers were deployed to locate the snipers in these buildings but when the SBU snipers arrived the snipers in the buildings were already gone. He said that the SBU snipers found bullet casings and other signs of presence of these non-government snipers there (Video, 2023b; Yuri, 2017).

An edited version of the SBU Alfa 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 (Dmitriy, 2014). 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 (Shevchenko, 2014). 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.

A Maidan activist stated that his friend intercepted and recorded on Maidan a radio-exchange of a group of snipers. A Maidan Self-Defense company commander was informed about this recording, but he disregarded this information which could have enabled to locate the shooters. The radio communication by this group of shooters was detected until the following day (Guerra, 2014). The content of this radio communication shows that they were not government snipers and were shooting at the Maidan activists on a command. The government investigation simply ignored this audio recording.

A Maidan activist said in a YouTube video that he shot the Berkut police from a Kalashnikov assault rifle on the Independence Square (Maidan) and captured a sniper on the 5th floor of the Ukrainian House (ProPolitiku, 2014). A Life TV journalist noted that he saw some Maidan protesters with Saiga version of Kalashnikov assault rifles during the massacre (Maydan, 2016). A Lviv protester stated that he saw on Hrushevsky Street after the massacre a group of Right Sector members armed with rifles wrapped in cloth and with Kalashnikov assault rifles hidden under their jackets (RTVE, 2014). Mykola Tokar, a Maidan protestor, said that holes in shields of protestors were from pellets, Kalashnikov assault rifles, and larger size caliber. These types and calibers of the ammunition are consistent with hunting rifles and hunting versions of Kalashnikov assault rifles used by the concealed armed groups of the Maidan snipers (Aleksandr, 2014).

A Ukrainian journalist noted that she heard a gunshot one or two floors above her in Hotel Ukraina on February 20 and that the Maidan Self-Defense was searching for a “shooter” there all day (Ukraine, 2016). Another Maidan protester said in his Radio Svoboda interview that there were snipers in Hotel Ukraina and that Maidan protesters asked the hotel administration to provide information concerning guests and checked the hotel (Radio, 2014b).

In addition to several mentioned above, many other Maidan activists stated in the media and social media that snipers in Hotel Ukraina were captured by the Maidan forces. Andrii Ostrozhny, a Maidan activist, said that a sniper in Zhovtnevyi Palace disappeared, while a sniper on the 10th floor of Hotel Ukraina was apprehended. According to an eyewitness account by another Maidan activist, he saw near this hotel that a person in black was carried out, and he was told that this person was captured in the hotel in one of the rooms booked by foreigners and was beaten. He implied that this was a sniper (Video, 2023b).

A Maidan eyewitness testified that a “sniper” on the 8th floor of Hotel Ukraina was probably “pulled apart” and that a “sniper” on the 2nd floor was escorted from the hotel under a blanket, put into a car, and his whereabouts are unknown. Another Maidan protester also said in his Ukrainian media interview that a sniper in Hotel Ukraina was captured but refused to reveal more detailed information about this sniper (see Video, 2023b, 51:55). A different Maidan protester suggested that two snipers in Hotel Ukraina and Zhovtnevyi Palace were captured (Oleksandr, 2014). A Maidan protester and Afghanistan war veteran noted that one sniper was captured in Hotel Ukraina but another continued to shoot afterwards. He also said that another sniper was captured in Zhovtnevyi Palace along with his rifle and ammunition (Wounded, 2014b). Another person from the Maidan said that there was a talk that a sniper was caught in the Trade Union building (Video, 2023b).

A Maidan medic, who treated wounded Maidan activists on the Maidan, said that he had information from Afghanistan war veterans that two snipers, who were shooting the Maidan activists from the Finbank and Kyivmiskbud buildings, were neutralized. He also received information about a sniper in Hotel Ukraina and another sniper, who was shooting from the roof of Zhovtnevyi Palace. A Maidan activist stated that there were most snipers in Hotel Ukraina and three snipers on the roof of Zhovtnevyi Palace, and that they killed two of these snipers, while another sniper disappeared (see Video, 2023b, 53:08). A leader of Spilna Sprava, a Maidan organization, said that one of the snipers was killed in Hotel Ukraina (Wilson, 2014, 88–90).

Orest Karakevych, a Maidan protester, said that he was informed that the Right Sector members were absent during the massacre, because they received advance warning from their leadership (Novyk, 2014). A Maidan activist said that the Right Sector had its own armed group among several Maidan groups of the armed protesters, primarily with hunting rifles. On February 18–20, 2014, one of these groups shot 8 Berkut and Internal Troops members, and another 12, in particular, from the Trade Union building and then from the conservatory (Guerra, 2014).

A Kyiv leader of the Patriot of Ukraine, a paramilitary wing of the Social National Assembly, stated on Facebook that he had a firsthand knowledge that the Maidan Self-Defense members stormed a suspected sniper’s room in Hotel Ukraina. He said that the hotel staff told him that Svoboda deputies reserved hotel rooms on the upper floors of the hotel during the massacre and that this sniper was shooting from one of such rooms. He also alleged that Petro Poroshenko, one of the leaders of the Maidan opposition who became the president of Ukraine, helped to whisk away this sniper, who used a name common in the Caucasus region (see Katchanovski, 2015). The BBC investigation report stated that courts blocked requests by lawyers of the Maidan massacre victims to obtain lists of people who booked these hotel rooms used by snipers (Gatehouse, 2015).

The former Maidan Self-Defense commander said that he learned that the snipers, who were captured by him and other Maidan activists, would be removed along with captured Internal Troops members by Maidan leaders and that he along with other protesters blocked a bus with them but they were released and escorted by foot by Maidan leaders. The former district leader of the Right Sector in Kyiv suggested that the leadership of this far-right organization and one of its paramilitary units helped to remove snipers along with captured Internal Troops members from the Maidan in a bus. Their testimonies were corroborated by videos that showed such events (Video, 2023a, 01:22:38; 2023b, 1:00:27).

The former Georgian military commander stated that Georgian snipers were involved in the Maidan massacre. He said that he had their names and their other data (PROTV, 2014; Video, 2023b, 55:13). Mykola Azarov, the former prime minister of Ukraine during the Maidan, stated that his exile organization in Russia knew names of two Lithuanian snipers who were on the Maidan (Nikolay, 2017). A Berkut officer said that he had information that three snipers from the Baltic States were detained by the government forces (Video, 2023b).

Oleh Tsariov, the ex-member of the Ukrainian parliament from the Party of Regions, testified during the special meeting of the UN Security Council concerning the Maidan that he received information from the Security Service of Ukraine during the Maidan that Georgian snipers participated in the massacre. A Polish member of the European parliament stated that he had information about the involvement inter alia of Poles during the Maidan massacre. But he did not know whether they themselves or snipers hired by them shot (Video, 2023b, 57:26).

Each of these testimonies concerning the Maidan snipers is corroborated by at least one other independent source, and typically multiple independent sources, including over 100 witness interviews, statements, and reports during the massacre itself concerning snipers in the Maidan-controlled buildings and areas, trial and investigation testimonies of the absolute majority of wounded Maidan protesters, synchronized videos, and forensic medical and ballistic examinations. Most of these testimonies are by Maidan activists and Western and Ukrainian pro-Maidan journalists who have no rational incentive to lie about this because such information implicates the Maidan forces in the massacre of their own Maidan protesters (see Chapter 3 and 5, Video, 2023a, 2023b, 2023c, 2023d, 2023e, 2023f).

There were also hundreds of interviews and reports by eyewitnesses in the media and social media that there were snipers in buildings without identifying specific buildings and that they shot the Maidan activists. Therefore, the Maidan massacre became almost synonymous with the massacre perpetrated by snipers. The Berkut police on the ground with Kalashnikov assault rifles and in the open do not fit any definition of snipers, i.e., professional snipers or shooters shooting precisely from hidden positions. However, the government investigation and Maidan victims’ lawyers denied at the Maidan massacre trial and numerous media interviews that there were such snipers.

The witness testimonies about killings of Maidan protesters by snipers in government-controlled buildings are not specific and not corroborated by videos, forensic medical examinations, and other primary evidence. The same concerns the massacre by the Berkut police with some exceptions that are due to lack of evidence or contradictory evidence. Nearly all such witness testimonies are by Maidan activists and pro-Maidan journalists who all have rational political interest to implicate the government forces in the massacre of the Maidan protesters.

There are no corroborated specific testimonies of massacre orders by Yanukovych, his government ministers and commanders of Berkut, the Security Service of Ukraine, and the Internal Troops, the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the media, and the social media. Numerous claims of such orders in the media and social media are allegations or speculations which were not based on any specific information and made by people who were not eyewitnesses.

For example, this concerns numerous claims that Yanukovych fled his residency in Mezhyhirria near Kyiv on February 19 and then Kyiv and Ukraine after the massacre because he ordered the massacre of the Maidan activists. The Yanukovych trial in absentia on state treason charges revealed various witness testimonies that he evacuated from his residence in Mezhyhirria on February 19 because there was an information about plan by the Right Sector and other Maidan activists to seize it. Various witness testimonies and other evidence revealed at the Yanukovych treason trial show that he fled from Kyiv on February 21 and then from Ukraine not because of his responsibility for the Maidan massacre but because of a number of assassinations attempts by the Maidan forces, in particular the far-right, and after their attempts to capture him and his residence near Kyiv and likely execute him (Katchanovski, 2020, 2023a, 2023b).

Witnesses testified at this trial that right after the Maidan massacre the presidential motorcade was shot at a checkpoint, which was manned by activists with Right Sector and Svoboda flags and that the bullets hit one of the cars and a gun of one of the Yanukovych bodyguards. Helicopter pilots, who flew Yanukovych in Ukraine after the massacre, testified that the air traffic controllers relayed them an order from Maidan leaders to land the helicopter with Yanukovych under threat of its shot-down by military planes. The witness testimonies also referred to information received by his security personnel about a plan involving Svoboda activists to assassinate him during a congress in Kharkiv where he flew after the Maidan massacre, and then on the road near Melitopol (see Katchanovski, 2020, 2023a, 2023b; Roschenko, 2018).

Leonid Kravchuk, the first president of Ukraine, revealed that he received information about a plot to assassinate Yanukovych around the time of the Maidan massacre. He stated that this plan was called “Ceausescu” after the last name of the last communist leader of Romania, who was assassinated by soldiers soon after snipers massacred the anti-government protesters in a false-flag operation (U Kravchuka, 2018). The former Romanian president, prime minister, and a number of other leaders of the “Romanian revolution” were charged by the Romanian prosecutors in 2018 and 2019 with crimes against humanity for using deliberate disinformation and diversion right after they seized power in 1989 to provoke false-flag mass killings (RFE/RL, 2018).

The Ukrainian parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from the position of the president of Ukraine under the false pretext that he abandoned his presidential duties and fled Ukraine because of his responsibility for the massacre. But the decision violated the Ukrainian Constitution and the vote lacked constitutional majority, while many deputies from the Yanukovych Party of Regions and the Communist Party voted under threat of violence, in particular, by the far-right. For example, the commander of the far-right-linked group of the Maidan snipers admitted that his group forced certain members of the parliament to participate in the votes to dismiss Yanukovych and his government and to elect the Maidan leaders in their place (Chapter 3; Katchanovski, Forthcoming; Kovalenko, 2014).

4.2 Confessions by 14 Self-Admitted Members of Maidan Sniper Groups

Moreover, 14 self-admitted members of Maidan sniper groups testified in the media and social media that the massacre of the police or protesters was perpetrated by the Maidan snipers. They include testimonies by several far-right activists and members of the far-right-linked special Maidan company of snipers in the Ukrainian media, a BBC program, the social media, and the Prosecutor General Office of Ukraine investigation and testimonies by seven self-admitted Georgian members of Maidan sniper groups for the Maidan massacre trial and investigation, and their interviews in American, Italian, and Israeli TV documentaries and Macedonian and Russian media.

Volodymyr Parasiuk, a special Maidan company commander, confirmed that his unit—which included armed protesters with experience fighting in armed conflicts—was based in the Music Conservatory building at the time of the massacre (Kovalenko, 2014). He de facto admitted in his various that his unit shot at the police (Schuller, 2015). Parasiuk denied any political or organizational affiliation by himself or his unit but said that he was a member of the far-right Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists in the past, a successor party of the Stepan Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. He said that he trained to shoot in its camps in the past. However, the presence of such a large armed unit at the Maidan could not be possible without its subordination to the Maidan Self-Defense or one of the political organizations of the Maidan opposition, and there is varied evidence of such links. Parasiuk admitted that his company was formed following negotiations with the Right Sector and that he later talked with representatives of Klitschko’s UDAR Party.

On February 21, 2014, Parasiuk in a speech from the Maidan stage in presence of the Maidan leaders blamed Yanukovych for the Maidan massacre and gave him an ultimatum to resign by next morning and threatened the use of force if he would not resign. Parubii said this ultimatum was a decision made by “the institutional bodies of the Maidan” and it was adopted by a military council set up by the Maidan Self-Defense and the Right Sector on February 21 (Kalnysh, 2015). After playing a key role in the violent overthrow of the Yanukovych government, Parasiuk served as a company commander in the Dnipro battalion, which was organized with the direct involvement of the Right Sector.

In a Lviv TV interview in 2014, Ivan Bubenchyk admitted that he was given a Kalashnikov assault rifle and shot at the police, first from behind the shields of the protesters during the police attack and then shortly before the police started to flee (Bubenchik, 2014; Katchanovski, 2015). In his other Ukrainian media interviews in 2016, he stated that he killed two policemen with his AK assault rifle from the Music Conservatory (Siiak, 2016). His shooting from this building and his joint photos and interviews with Volodymyr Parasiuk in the Music Conservatory building suggest that Bubenchyk was a member of the Parasiuk-led special company based there.

The name of Bubenchyk is included in the list of members of this far-right-linked company. This list was compiled by this Maidan company, obtained by the Prosecutor General Office investigation, and made public by a popular Ukrainian blogger and the Ukrainian media (Kto, 2020). The names and places of residence of two members of this sniper group matched the names and places of residence of two far-right Svoboda activists, who were from Galicia in Western Ukraine and participated in the Maidan.

Another link of this company to the far-right is Bubenchyk’s statement that the Right Sector promised him more ammunition during the Maidan massacre of the protesters after he spent his ammunition shooting into the police from the Conservatory building. He also said that Yanukovych was supposed to be killed on February 20 (#BABYLON'13, 2016). The GPU charged him with felony of killings two police officers but then after intervention of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, who was one of the Maidan leaders, his charges were changed to a lesser crime, and he was released. The new charges were covered by a law that gave amnesty to the Maidan protesters.

This Maidan sniper joined the Dnipro battalion and became the commander of Zakhid-2 battalion, which was formed by a part of the Right Sector activists and Voluntary Ukrainian Corps (DUK) commanders during a split in these far-right organization and its paramilitary wing in fall 2016. Bubenchyk became one of the leaders of Radical Right Forces, the UPA, formed in February 2016 by a part of the Right Sector activists and DUK commanders, attempting to launch a new Maidan protest (Viktoriya, 2016).

In an interview with a Ukrainian Vesti newspaper, one of the Maidan self-admitted Maidan snipers said that he started firing on police from the Music Conservatory building around 6:00 am and saw about 10 other Maidan shooters shooting at the police from this building in the morning of February 20. This Maidan sniper said that he was among a group of about 20 protesters who were asked at around 6:00 pm on February 19 to come forward if they had shooting skills. He said that he used Saiga, a hunting version of Kalashnikov assault rifle. He stated that their guns were hidden at the Main Post Office (Chimiris, 2014b). This building was located directly across the street from the Music Conservatory, and it was occupied by the Right Sector at the time of the February 20 shootings. His reported service in the summer of 2014 in a volunteer battalion in a town near a sea most likely refers to the neo-Nazi-led Azov special police battalion, which was then based in Mariupol. This unit was organized and led in May 2014 by the neo-Nazi Social National Assembly (SNA) and Patriot of Ukraine, its paramilitary branch, which were a part of the Right Sector during Maidan.

In a BBC interview, one of the Maidan snipers based in the Music Conservatory said that he was recruited for such a mission at the end of January 2014. This sniper said that he was among a group of Maidan activists who were asked by “the Maidan security people” on February 19 to come forward if they had shooting skills and then given a choice of weapons, which included shotguns and Saiga rifles—which is based on the Kalashnikov assault rifle—before being told to take convenient positions in the Music Conservatory. He said that he was shooting at the police (Gatehouse, 2015).

Another Maidan activist confessed in a leaked video of his interrogation at the Prosecutor General Office of Ukraine of providing his Saiga, a hunting version of a Kalashnikov assault rifle, to members of the far-right-linked Maidan company of snipers in the Music Conservatory to shoot the police. He also testified that he witnessed such shooting and that snipers in Hotel Ukraina shot the Maidan activists (Sharij, 2019; Video, 2023b).

Another Maidan sniper admitted in his Ukrainian media interview that he shot at the police with live ammunition on the Maidan. He was reportedly a KGB-trained sniper and an officer in the Alfa unit of the Security Service of Ukraine before the Euromaidan and one of top people in the security of the oligarchic Fatherland Party during the Euromaidan. He said that he shot and hit a person who was “titushka” and shot and hit a police water cannon on February 18, 2014. The self-admitted sniper did not mention any investigation about his shooting and his whereabouts during the February 20 massacre, but he served as an expert on Ukrainian television about the Maidan massacre. He became a deputy head of the SBU Alfa after the Maidan with a calling sign based on the Right Sector name.

He was one of the commanders of the special Alfa group which was tasked with attacking first separatists in Luhansk and then Strelkov-led armed Russian nationalist group in Sloviansk. He was wounded and another Alfa officer killed by separatists on April 13, 2014, near Sloviansk after they discovered his advancing group. This was the first deadly firefight during the “Anti-Terrorist Operation” in Donbas. This admission provides another indication of the involvement of Fatherland in the Maidan massacre of the protesters and the police and a reason for its failed investigations (Butusov, 2016).

A member of the “Vikings” neo-Nazi group in the Right Sector during the Euromaidan admitted on the Ukrainska pravda forum and on his VK page that he killed two policemen on February 18, 2014, and that his associate, who was deputy leader of the “Vikings,” also killed two policemen on the same day from a revolver. They both served in the Ukrainian Voluntary Corps of the Right Sector during the war in Donbas (Olexiyovich, 2015). After this admission, this deputy Vikings commander was posthumously awarded Hero of Ukraine title by President Poroshenko for his service in a Right Sector paramilitary unit during the war in Donbas.

Several Georgians stated that they, along with others from Georgia, the Baltic States, and Ukraine, were members of the Maidan sniper groups. Six Georgians testified in American, Italian, Israeli, Macedonian, and the Russian media and for the Maidan massacre trial and investigation in Ukraine that they witnessed shooting by snipers from the far-right-linked Maidan company and by Georgian and Baltic snipers at police and the protesters from the Music Conservatory and Hotel Ukraina.

They testified that specific Maidan leaders, in particular, from the Fatherland Party and the Maidan Self-Defense, and former Georgian government leaders and commanders gave them orders and firearms to massacre both protesters and the police to stop a peace deal agreed upon by Yanukovych and the Maidan leaders. They said that they then saw on February 20, 2024, Maidan snipers from Georgia, the Baltic States, and the far-right Right Sector-linked Ukrainian group shooting from the Music Conservatory and Hotel Ukraina. One of them stated in a US documentary that he shot protesters from Hotel Ukraina (Goroshinskij, 2019; InsideOver, 2017a, 2017b; MichaelRCaputo, 2022; Stephan, 2018).

The specific information given by them was generally consistent with various publicly available evidence concerning the Maidan massacre. This includes locations of many of the snipers in Hotel Ukraina and the Music Conservatory, exact calibers of firearms used to massacre protesters, the involvement of the far-right-linked special Maidan armed company under Parasiuk’s command, and a well-known video of a Maidan leader who was filmed on February 18 evacuating a Maidan protester with a rifle.

One of the Georgians reported in the media that 50 Georgians were brought to Maidan and were in covert Maidan sniper units and that many of them later joined the Georgian legion and far-right-led formations, such as Azov and Aidar battalions. The same two Georgians, who said in the Italian TV documentary that they received orders and weapons to massacre both police and Maidan protesters, in long live interviews to one of the most popular Macedonian TV channels provided many more details about their background, their arrival and departure from Ukraine, and the Maidan massacre as a false-flag operation.

In particular, they said that they saw many top Maidan leaders and Saakashvili in Hotel Ukraina before February 18 and that they were taken by Parubii, the current head of the Ukrainian parliament, from the Boryspil airport to an Ushynsky Street apartment in Kyiv bypassing the border control. One of them said that he and other members of his group refused an order to shoot but that he witnessed shooting from the Music Conservatory and then Hotel Ukraina on February 20. Another Georgian said that there was shooting from the conservatory and his Hotel Ukraina room and that he saw Lithuanians shooting from a Hotel Ukraina window. They said that they and some other Georgians from one group left the hotel because it was dangerous to remain there and went to the Boryspil airport and flew to Tbilisi right after the massacre was over.

Alexander Revazishvilli, one of these Georgians, who stated in an Italian TV documentary that they were in the groups of Maidan snipers, said in his Macedonian TV interview that an adviser of then Georgian president selected him because he was a military sniper, gathered their group in the beginning of 2013, i.e., a year before the Maidan massacre, informed them that there would be a “coup” in Ukraine and that they traveled in March and September 2013 to the Independence Square (Maidan) in Kyiv to survey best positions for snipers and identified Hotel Ukraina, the Music Conservatory, and Zhovtnevyi Palace as such. He stated that they again flew to Ukraine during the “Euromaidan” mass protesters in the end of January 2014 with a task of provoking the Berkut anti-riot police to use force against the Maidan protesters and spill blood of the protesters.

This Georgian said that in the morning of February 19 their group was ordered by one of the Maidan leaders from the Fatherland Party to move from the Georgian tent on the Maidan to the Music Conservatory and given SKS carbines and bullets. He also stated that he saw there a group of about 10 people, who included the Maidan special company commander and his father armed with Kalashnikov-based Saiga hunting carbine and with SKS carbine, and another group of Georgians who were accompanied by a former top Georgian military commander. The interviewee stated that all these groups and the said Maidan leader shot for about 10–15 minutes circa 7:30 am–8:00 am on February 20 from the Conservatory at both the Berkut police and the Maidan protesters following a command to do so by this Maidan leader.

This Georgian said that he then abandoned the Maidan and flew back to Georgia. He named several Georgian officials in the Saakashvili government, the said Maidan leader and several people whom he referred to as other snipers. He also described a former far-right American US Army sniper who called himself in a Ukrainian TV program a Right Sector adviser and an Azov battalion instructor. The Georgian stated that he and other two Georgians decided to go public and give interviews to the Italian and Macedonian television programs because they felt danger to their lives after several Georgians, whom he said were Maidan snipers or participated in these Maidan events, were killed in strange circumstances in Ukraine. He specifically named a Georgia-based Chechen killed by a car bomb in Kyiv, three Georgians who served in the neo-Nazi-led Azov regiment and were killed during the Donbas war, and two Georgians killed during the Maidan massacre.

The last name of the Georgian killed during the Maidan massacre in strange circumstances matches David Kipiani, whose body was reportedly found close to midnight on February 20 in a Maidan-controlled area far from the shooting. He was a member of the Georgian Party led by Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia who became the governor of the Odesa Region in Ukraine in 2015. Killing of this Georgian protester on February 20 was not included in the charges against the Berkut, and circumstances of his killings have not been officially disclosed.

The same two Georgians in another media interview and in testimony to defense lawyers in the Maidan massacre trial stated that they were in groups of Georgian, Baltic, and Ukrainian snipers who shot both police and protesters from Hotel Ukraina and Music Conservatory on orders of a Maidan leader, whom they named. They confirmed their previous testimony and also said that there were other named commanders of Georgian sniper groups. They reportedly also produced copies of plane tickets as proof of their presence on the Maidan. In testimony to a Berkut lawyer for the Maidan massacre trial, one of these Georgians stated that a group of snipers in the Music Conservatory was headed by Pashynsky and that it included Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Georgians, and Poles (Veselov, 2018a, 2018b).

Since the Georgian interviewed by the Macedonian TV gave not only his name but also specific information about himself, said that he crossed the Ukrainian border at Kyiv airports in spring and fall 2013 using his real passport, and showed passport stamps, it would be easy for investigators, government officials, and journalists to verify his identity and his bombshell statements. This study cannot verify information concerning specific individuals named in these interviews because this academic study of the Maidan massacre analyzed this massacre from a political science perspective and not analyzes involvement of specific snipers and massacre organizers. But information, which is given by him about the specific locations of snipers, types, and calibers of firearms from which Maidan protesters and the police were shot, shooting of both police and the protesters from the Music Conservatory and Hotel Ukraina, involvement of the Right Sector-linked Maidan special company and elements of the Fatherland Party, and the Maidan massacre as a false-flag operation, is generally consistent with numerous publicly available evidence analyzed in this book.

Various self-styled “fact-checking” websites, the Prosecutor General Office of Ukraine, Maidan victim lawyers, and with some exceptions, the Ukrainian media claimed that these Georgians were fake or actors. They did not produce any evidence in support of such claims, apart from the absence of Ukrainian border-crossing records by these Georgians during the Maidan, or certain inconsistencies, such as a spelling error in a document.

German ARD TV “factcheck” program propagated fake news that Alexander Revazishvilli was in prison in Georgia during the Maidan massacre (Stöber, 2021). BBC Monitoring suggested that the Georgian snipers are fake because Revazishvilli mistakenly identified another Georgian as himself wearing a cap in a Life TV report in a Georgian tent on the Maidan. However, this video shows also another Georgian wearing a cap that hid his face (Pegov, 2016).

Moreover, the Maidan massacre trial in November 2021 admitted and examined a video of testimony by Alexander Revazishvilli, who confessed being a member of the Georgian group of Maidan snipers (Sudova, 2021). The Ukrainian border guard documents presented at the trial by the prosecution confirmed his identity and that he crossed the border into Ukraine in a Kyiv airport and back to Georgia in spring and fall 2013 shortly before the start of the Maidan.

Most of these Georgians provided their names, passport numbers, Ukrainian border stamps, copies of their plane tickets to Ukraine, their photos in Ukraine or the Georgian military, and other specific evidence in support of their testimonies. They said that they had entered Ukraine before the massacre with forged passports using false names and without border control. The head of the Georgian Legion admitted that the Georgian, with a spelling error in his Ministry of Defense, served as an adviser in this ministry (Myth, 2018).

Specific information that the self-admitted members of the Maidan sniper groups stated in their media interviews and testimonies for the Maidan massacre trial and investigation in Ukraine could have been investigated and easily verified or shown to be false by the official investigation, government officials, and journalists in Ukraine. The fact that this is not done is another dog that did not bark. This indirectly corroborates their statements.

The lack of government investigation in Ukraine of the statements by five Georgians, blocking of their testimony in a Maidan massacre trial by the Ukrainian government, and a campaign to denounce them as fakes or actors also suggest that they and their testimonies are real. There is another confirmation from Saakashvili military adviser that one of them served in the Georgian Defense Ministry’s Council of Advisors and was known to this adviser. English-language errors in his ID were used to declare him fake, even though he stated that this ID was not from the official agency but from a covert “zonderkomanda” of Saakashvili which included ex-military and criminals. The commander of the Georgian Legion in Ukraine stated that Koba Nergadze “started to work at the Defense Ministry’s Council of Advisors in 2012 through an interview process” (Myth, 2018).

In addition, the Israeli TV documentary showed that one of these Georgians was filmed on May 2, 2014, during the Odesa massacre in the Trade Union building, along with far-right-led pro-Maidan activists (Stephan, 2018). The ex-commander of the special armed Maidan Self-Defense Company, who was named along with his father as snipers by these Georgian ex-military, and two members of his company admitted in Ukrainian media interviews, and one in a BBC interview that they shot the police from the Music Conservatory and the Maidan barricades on the morning of February 20.

Another Georgian confessed in a protocol of his interrogation by some of the Right Sector leaders that he was hired and deployed in an abandoned building near Maidan to shoot during the massacre. He was captured after the massacre, interrogated by the Right Sector, and released by one of the Maidan leaders (Zavorotnyi, 2016). This is consistent with testimonies by several Maidan activists that some snipers were captured during and immediately after the massacre, particularly in Hotel Ukraina, but then released by Maidan leaders (see Video, 2023b).

In contrast, there were no such admissions of the involvement in the Maidan massacre in the media or social media by the Berkut policemen, ex-police and SBU commanders and members, and ex-Yanukovych government ministers and other officials admitting their own involvement or other government forces involvement in the massacre of the protesters, witnessing such involvement, or getting such specific information from other witnesses. This includes both those charged with the massacre in Ukraine or in absentia and those who were not charged, in particular, those who continued to serve under the new Maidan governments. The same concerns involvement of any third force snipers in the massacre. The Maidan massacre trial verdict confirmed that there was no massacre order by Yanukovych and his government ministers and other government officials (see Chapter 8; Katchanovski, 2024).

Testimonies by hundreds of witnesses are summarized in Table 4.1.

Table 4.1 Summary of witness testimonies concerning Maidan snipers