The new Ukrainian government is faced with reopening an inquiry into evidence of an organized mass killing in Kiev that Poroshenko stonewalled. Ivan Katchanovski investigates.
By Ivan Katchanovski
Special to Consortium News
Five years ago, the Maidan massacre in Kiev, Ukraine, of Feb. 18-20, 2014, was a watershed event, not only for the politics and history of Ukraine but also for world politics generally. This mass killing in downtown Kyiv set the stage for the violent overthrow of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine and a new Cold War between Washington and Moscow.
Therefore, it is remarkable that five years after this massacre shook the world, no one has been sentenced for any of the Maidan killings. This was the best documented case of mass killing in history, broadcast live on TV and the internet, in presence of thousands of eyewitnesses. It was filmed by hundreds of journalists from major media in the West, Ukraine, Russia, and many other countries as well as by numerous social media users. Yet, to this day, no one has been brought to justice for this major and consequential crime.
Police in Hrushevsky Street, Kiev, Feb. 12, 2014. (Wikimedia)
From the start, the dominant narrative promoted by the Ukrainian and Western governments and mainstream media has placed the blame for this tragedy firmly on the Yanukovych government. It contends that forces loyal to former President Victor Yanukovych— either snipers and/or the Berkut, a special anti-riot police— massacred peaceful Maidan protesters on the direct orders of Yanukovych himself. Such charges against Yanukovych, his ministers and commanders and a special Berkut unit—whose five ex-members were tried for the murder of 48 Maidan protesters on Feb. 20, 2014 — are generally taken at face value. With some limited exceptions, challenges to this narrative are treated dismissively.
For the most part, mainstream news media in the U.S. and other Western countries ignored trial evidence, public statements by officials and politicians and scholarly studies that put the standard narrative under question. This includes non-reporting about my own academic studies of the Maidan massacre.
Killing Protesters and Police
My work found that this was an organized mass killing of both protesters and the police, with the goal of delegitimizing the Yanukovych government and its forces and seizing power in Ukraine. Oligarchic and far right elements of the Maidan movement were involved in this massacre. For this reason, the official investigation was fabricated and stonewalled. I presented studies to support this as well as several online video appendixes with various evidence at the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association in San Francisco in 2015 and Boston in 2018, the 2017 World Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities in New York in 2017, and a joint conference by the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University and the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies in 2018, and published their summary in an academic press volume.
The prosecutor general of Ukraine recently announced that the investigation of the Maidan massacre is complete. He cited reconstructions of the Maidan massacre by a New York architecture company, working with a team of Ukrainian “volunteers” to provide a 3D model, as definite evidence that the Maidan protesters were massacred by the Berkut police and that snipers did not massacre the protesters.
This model was featured by The New York Times, in its May 30, 2018, report “Who Killed the Kiev Protesters?” as a proof that the Berkut police massacred Maidan protesters.
However, no expert knowledge or familiarity with the Maidan massacre or Ukraine is needed to see blatant misrepresentation of elementary data in that 3D model.
The wound locations of the killed Maidan protesters in the 3D model do not match the wound locations in the forensic medical examinations of the bodies. The reports of those examinations were used in this simulation to determine the locations of the shooters. They are published in Ukrainian and English on the linked website. According to one such report, Ihor Dmytriv was shot in the “right side surface” and the “left side surface” of the torso “from the right to the left, from the top to the bottom, and a little from the front to the back” with the entry wound 20.5cm (8 inches) higher than the exit wound. However, in the simulation, his wounds have been moved to the front and the back and made nearly horizontal.
Actual wound locations of Dmytriv and their misrepresentation.
A Maidan lawyer visually confirmed at the Maidan massacre trial that these wounds locations of were in the right and left sides. In the video of their examination of Dmytriv right after his shooting, Maidan medics also indicate such locations of his wounds with no wounds visible in the front area, contrary to the 3D model. The forensic medical reports also state that Dmytriv was wounded in his right shoulder from bottom to top direction, with this entry wound 5 cm lower, but the 3D animation also misrepresents this direction.
The wound locations of the other two victims have been similarly altered. The 3D model moved the exit wound location from around the middle line of the back of Andriy Dyhdalovych’s body in forensic medical and clothing examinations significantly to the right. It also changed a similar large vertical angle from a top and bottom direction and 17 cm difference in height of entry and exit wounds to nearly horizontal level.
Actual wound locations of Dyhdalovych and their misrepresentation.
In the case of Yuriy Parashchuk, forensic medical examinations found that his entry and exit wounds were in the back of his head on the left side. But the 3D analysis moved the entry wound location to the front area and changed its somewhat top-to-bottom direction to nearly horizontal. Frames from a video by a French photographer shows a large bullet hole in the back of Parashchuk’s red helmet. How can he be shot in the back of his head by the Berkut police on a nearly similar horizontal level?
Changing the wound locations invalidates the entire reconstruction and, therefore, the conclusions of the SITU analysis and The New York Times article, that these and other Maidan protesters were shot from the Berkut positions.
One does not need to be a ballistic expert to see that locations of wounds in the back and on the sides and top-to-bottom directions of wounds specified in forensic medical reports and positions of these three killed protesters facing the Berkut in the videos cannot physically match with Berkut police positions located on a similar horizontal level on the ground in front of them. The forensic medical examinations conducted for the government investigation and made public at the Maidan massacre trial revealed that the absolute majority of the protesters were shot not in front and not from horizontal or near horizontal directions that are consistent with police positions. Rather, they were shot from a top-to-bottom direction and in sides or the back that are consistent with shooting from the Maidan-controlled buildings.
Government Investigation
The government investigation, conducted after the Maidan government came to power after this massacre, and which charged the Berkut police behind the barricades with killing these three protesters, raises the same concerns.
The complex medical examinations, which were published on the SITU website and which are presented by the government investigation in Ukraine as a key evidence that the Berkut police massacred the protesters, showed the same bullet trajectories as the 3D model. The text of these examinations, which are available in Ukrainian and in English translations, shows that these bullet trajectories were determined not by ballistic experts butby medical experts without any calculations or explanations.
Synchronized videos, which were used by the SITU to determine that the Berkut police behind a truck barricade killed Parashchuk, actually show that he and other protesters were in a blind spot below the line of police fire from behind a truck. It was physically impossible for the police behind the wide and tall truck to shoot at him below over the top of this truck. Dozens of other Maidan protesters who were killed and wounded around the same spot were in the same situation.
Parashchuk in the blind spot below the line of fire from the police behind the truck.
The locations of the forces of the Yanukovych government during the massacre are well known, and they are identified in my studies, the government investigation charges, numerous videos, and in the SITU 3D model.
At the time of the killings of these three protesters, Berkut policemen were behind the barricades on Instytutska Street on the government side, while the protesters who were killed were in between Berkut and the Hotel Ukraina.
Forensic examinations of bullet holes by government experts described numerous bullet holes on the second, third, and higher floors and the roof of the Hotel Ukraina on the side that faced the government forces. But they did not identify a single bullet hole on the first floor on the Berkut facing side of the hotel behind these protesters. Simple positioning of the bullet hole locations described in these forensic reports clearly shows that almost all bullets from the Berkut and other positions flew above the heads of the protesters there or targeted poles, trees, and a flower box. This is also shown in vide and photos — including some I took there after the massacre — and in videos and reports of shooting at journalists in the hotel with a Google Street View image from the first Berkut barricade.
This confirms my study findings that the special Berkut police unit and the Omega unit of snipers of Internal Troops were shooting at snipers in the Hotel Ukraina.
After five long years, the failure by the Poroshenko government’s investigation to determine bullet trajectories by ballistic experts or conduct on-site investigative experiments for the same purpose — even after the Maidan massacre trial judges ordered them two years ago to do so — is therefore hardly surprising. It is impossible to bend physical reality. In a literal cover-up, large fences were recently erected on the crime scene for the construction of the Maidan massacre memorial, which would completely alter the landscape. The fences and the memorial would make it impossible to determine bullet trajectories on-site, which still has not been done by the investigation for five years after this mass killing.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry with Poroshenko, outside Presidential Palace in Kiev, Feb. 5, 2015, during Kerry’s first round of meetings with the new government. (State Department via Flickr)
The SITU reconstruction also missed bullet holes that appeared in Dmytriv’s shield and in a shield of another protester in front of Dyhdalovych in videos of their shooting that were used in the reconstruction. The locations of these bullet holes are inconsistent with shooting from the Berkut barricades.
But these shields with clear locations of the bullet holes, like the helmet of Parashchuk and almost all the shields and helmets of protesters who were killed or wounded, mysteriously disappeared after the massacre, along with a lot of other crucial evidence, such as bullets and security-camera footage.
Similarly, crucial testimonies of Maidan protesters, who witnessed the killings of Dyhdalovych and Dmytriv, are ignored by the Times’ report, SITU and the official Ukrainian investigation. Dyhdalovych’s wife stated in her Ukrainian media interview that another protester told her that he saw that Dyhdalovych was killed by a sniper on the roof of the Bank Arkada. This protester was filmed following Dyhdalovych when they both went to evacuate Dmytriv after he was shot. The Bank Arkada is a tall green building in the front and to the right of both Dyhdalovych and Dmytriv, and it appears to match the apparent directions of their wounds. My Maidan massacre studies video appendices showed that it was in the Maidan-controlled area and that snipers on its roof during the massacre were reported by both numerous Maidan protesters, including many wounded who spoke at the Maidan massacre trial and investigation, and by Security Service of Ukraine commanders and snipers.
SITU diagram of victims’ locations and names.
A female Maidan medic during the massacre was pointing to the top of this green building and shouting about snipers. But her words were translated in a BBC report as referring to six protesters killed by the snipers in that area. A Maidan protester and another Maidan medic, who were wounded near the same spot where these two protesters were killed, both testified at the Maidan massacre trial that they were shot from this building. Government ballistic experts confirmed this during on-site investigative experiments.
Western Press Silence
These revelations were not reported by any Western media. This includes The New York Times, which on April 5, 2014, profiled this wounded protester against the backdrop of an unquestioned report by the acting government in Kiev that blaming “former President Viktor F. Yanukovych, his riot police and their suspected Russian assistants for the violence that killed more than 100 people in Kiev in February.”
It also includes CNN, which filmed the shooting of this medic and attributed it to the government forces.
The government investigation simply denies that there were any snipers there and in other Maidan-controlled buildings, and refuses to investigate them. This is done despite videos of such snipers and testimonies of the absolute majority of wounded protesters at the trial and investigation and more than 150 other witnesses about snipers in these locations.
The assumption in the 3D model that Dmytriv was shot by the single bullet is also contradicted by testimony of another protester who saw that Dmytriv was shot by “a sniper” from the Hotel Ukraina. My Maidan massacre studies and their video appendices showed that this hotel was then controlled by the Maidan forces.
The New York Times article described collaboration of the New York architecture firm with a Ukrainian “volunteer” in creating the 3D model. It did not report 2017 admissions by the prosecutor general of Ukraine on Facebook that his government agency funded the work of a group of anonymous “volunteers,” including this Ukrainian graduate student, in compiling and synchronizing various videos of the Maidan massacre in collaboration with a People’s Front party outlet.
Some of the People’s Front party leaders were accused by various Ukrainian politicians and Maidan activists, such as Nadia Savchenko, and by five ex-Georgian ex-military members in Italian and Israeli TV documentaries, of direct involvement in this massacre. Meanwhile, the Times lauds the Ukrainian government’s investigation and Maidan lawyers for drawing on such analyses by these “citizen investigators” and treats a New York architect firm as providing key evidence in the Maidan massacre trial.
Brad Samuels is a founding partner of Situ Research, the New York architecture company that produced the 3D model of the killing of three protesters, which was presented by the Times as proof that such snipers did not exist and that 49 protesters were massacred by the Berkut police.
Samuels said in a video [start at 55:16] that “…eventually, there is a consensus that there was a third party acting. It is clear from forensic evidence that people were shot in the back. Somebody was shooting from rooftops.” His striking observation was not included anywhere in the SITU 3D model report that he produced. Nor was it reported by the Times.
Cases of protesters, who were shot in the back, were omitted from the SITU model. But even in the deliberately selected cases of the three protesters, who were presented by this simulation as shot in front, their actual wound locations suggest that they were also shot from a Maidan-controlled building, which was located in front and to the right of them.
There was not a single report in English-language media concerning testimonies at the Maidan massacre trial where 25 wounded Maidan protesters, with whose shootings Berkut policemen are charged, who stated that they were shot from Maidan-controlled buildings or areas.
Video still from trial.
Major outlets likewise neglected to cover the testimonies by 30 wounded protesters who said they witnessed snipers in those locations or were told about them by other protesters. This is stunning since these testimonies are publicly available in live online recordings of the Maidan massacre trial and they are complied with English-language subtitles into an online video appendix to my study. These testimonies represent the majority of wounded protesters with whose shooting Berkut was charged. They are consistent with video testimonies by about 100 witnesses in the media and social media and at the trial and the investigation. But the official investigation in Ukraine simply denies that there were any such snipers in Maidan-controlled buildings, even though the Prosecutor General Office of Ukraine previously stated that snipers massacred many protesters from the Hotel Ukraina and other buildings.
Similarly, not a single media outlet reported segments of the Belgian VRT News video that showed Maidan protesters shouting during the massacre that they saw snipers in the Maidan-controlled Hotel Ukraina shooting Maidan protesters, pointing towards them, and asking them not to shoot. These segments were only shown to a small number of people at the Maidan massacre trial and are included in my online video appendix on YouTube. Other segments from this same video, however,were broadcast to some several hundred million viewers by major television networks in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany, France, Poland, Italy, and Ukraine, and many other countries as evidence that the government forces massacred the Maidan protesters.
With the notable exception of an Associated Press story quoting the charismatic politician Nadia Savchenko, news agencies have ignored the public remarks of several Maidan politicians and activists who said that they witnessed the involvement of specific top Maidan leaders in the massacre.
Testimonies by five Georgian ex-military members in Italian, Israeli, Macedonian and Russian media and their published depositions to Berkut lawyers for the Maidan massacre trial have also been ignored. They stated that their groups received weapons, payments, and orders to massacre both police and protesters from specific Maidan and Georgian politicians.
They also said that they received instructions from a far-right linked ex-U.S. Army sniper and then saw Georgian, Baltic States, and Right Sector-linked snipers shooting from specific Maidan-controlled buildings.
Western media silence also greeted a recent statement by Anatolii Hrytsenko, one of the top Ukrainian presidential candidates, who was also a Maidan politician and minister of defense, that the investigation of the massacre has been stonewalled because of the involvement of someone from the current leadership of Ukraine in this mass killing.
In contrast, there were no such testimonies admitting involvement in the massacre or knowledge of such involvement by the Berkut policemen, ex-police and security services commanders; nor by ex-Yanukovych government officials. No specific evidence of orders by then-president Yanukovych or his ministers and commanders to massacre unarmed protesters has been revealed by the trials, investigations or news reporting. Nonetheless, the Western mainstream media report existence of such orders as a matter of a fact.
Yanukovych with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (President of Russia)
Not a single major Western media reported that a forensic ballistic examination, conducted by government institute experts on the prosecution request with use of an automatic computer-based IBIS-TAIS system, determined that bullets extracted from killed protesters did not match a police database of bullet samples from Kalashnikov assault rifles of members of the entire Kyiv Berkut regiment. The latter included the special Berkut company charged with the massacre of the protesters. The same concerns the forensic examination findings that many protesters were killed with hunting bullets and pellets.
There are no Western media reports, at least in English, concerning the investigation by the Prosecutor General Office of Ukraine. This investigation determined, based on protester’s testimonies and investigative experiments, that almost half of the protesters (77 out of 157) were wounded on Feb. 20 from other sectors than the Berkut police and that no one was charged with their shooting.
A female Maidan medic, whose wounding on the Maidan was highly publicized by Western and Ukrainian media and politicians and attributed to government snipers, is one of them. Since the official investigation determined that government snipers did not massacre the Maidan protesters, with a single implausible exception announced recently, this implies that these protesters were wounded from the Maidan-controlled buildings and areas.
Medic sniper vicim. (Youtube)
There was Western media silence, including from the BBC, about revelations by the Prosecutor General Office that one of the leaders of far right party Svoboda, who was also a member of the Ukrainian parliament at the time of the massacre, occupied a Hotel Ukraina room from which a sniper in Maidan-style green helmet was filmed by the BBC shooting in the direction of the Maidan protesters and the BBC’s own journalists.
Similarly, there are no mainstream media reports of the visual examinations of bullet holes and their impact points by the government investigators that determined that one German ARD television room at the Hotel Ukraina was shot from the direction of the Main Post Office, which was at the time the headquarters of the Right Sector. The latter far-right group included radical nationalist and neo-Nazi organizations and football ultras. This bullet just narrowly missed a German ARD TV female producer. The government investigators also determined that another ARD room in the same hotel was shot at from the Music Conservatory building, which was then the headquarters of the Right-Sector-linked special armed Maidan Self-Defense company.
Likewise, nothing was reported about a forensic ballistic examination made public at the trial that revealed that an ABC News producer was shot in his Hotel Ukraina room by a Winchester caliber hunting soft-point bullet that did not match a caliber of Berkut Kalashnikovs.
Misrepresentation of the Maidan massacre and its investigation by Western media and governments is puzzling.
American independence leader John Adams once defended the British soldiers charged with the Boston massacre in 1770. He regarded this defense as important for the rule of law to prevail over politics. He famously stated at the Boston massacre trial that “facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” He not only won this politically charged case of a crucial massacre in U.S. politics and history but became U.S. president afterwards. The question is why this dictum is not heeded almost 250 years later in the case of the Maidan massacre in Ukraine.
Ivan Katchanovski teaches at the School of Political Studies and the Department of Communication at the University of Ottawa. He held research and teaching positions at Harvard University, the State University of New York at Potsdam, the University of Toronto, and the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. He received Ph.D. from the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He is the author of “Cleft Countries: Regional Political Divisions and Cultures in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Moldova.”
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/JohnBatchelorShow/~3/csiDjn5WpY4/7242665
It seems he also has shiny shoes and sparkling teeth, so perhaps he can be called smart?
Well-turned-outness is important at certain stages.
Chaussures brillantes et dents scintillantes.
https://politics.theonion.com/emmanuel-macron-amused-by-little-differences-in-french-1825508948
Alors peut-être qu’il peut être appelé “intelligent”?
There has been a lot of this, Forever. What about Malaysia Airlines Flight 17? That story has been buried and paved over . That incident was the basic impetus ( Snowden notwithstanding) of the Obama Administration starting Cold War 2.0. And what of that horrible gas attack in Syria that coincided with UN Inspectors arriving in a hotel just 9 miles away? Seymour Hersh did a great expose on the false narrative that was published in the NY Times regarding vector analysis and the such the next day. Wasn’t it amazing that propaganda films from IS were broadcast all over the Western World unquestioningly the next day? How is such a thing possible? Try to search it now, you will have to work on it unless you already know what you want to read. Who does that serve ultimately? Not Google. I could bring up old chatter about FDR having been provided information regarding plans for a Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and doing nothing about it , but why? This is more or less common knowledge. I’ll be dead before that information is declassified. What I can say is “REMEMBER THE MAINE”. Information about that incident down there in Cuba which was the casus belli of the Spanish American War was released after 100 years and it turned out the Intelligence Assessments said it wasn’t a terrorist attack at all. A boiler on the Maine blew up and killed a lot of sailors. Hey, it all worked out for Uncle Sammy.. Who knows how many incidents throughout history there are of the “Ruling Class” using disinformation to manipulate the rabble. Why not? It’s good for business.
Thank you for the informative article. The Guardian performed some fairly good investigative journalism of the Maidan massacre which supports your findings, but the reporting was shut down fairly soon afterward. Unfortunately, when the truth contradicts the official fabrication, it is the truth that is covered up. In this case, the truth might lead to direct CIA support of the neo-Nazi leaders of the demonstration.
Thank you, Dr Ivan Katchanovski and CN!
To see this crucial evidence published here made me thoroughly glad. The facts presented in the article are tremendously important. As stated, «Facts are stubborn things». To be valid, any argument must be based on relevant facts. In the case of the 2014 coup, one can infer the perpetrators’ argument, that «the ends justified the means». It is utterly revolting.
I share the disgust expressed here in the comments at the deliberate killing of innocent men and women, and at those that planned and executed this extreme crime.
The complete silence and misrepresentations in Western public debate, by politicans and msm, are equally devoid of ethics (and probably very telling). Not only do the politicians and journalists, by covering up, become complicit to the assassinations, and sell their souls, but also contribute to the growing, and well-founded, lack of trust in our politicians, msm and indeed our democracy.
Looking forward to more contributions by Dr Katchanovski.
To continue in the same direction and vein, what is known about who did what in the decision-making, planning and execution of the massacre and entire coup (and ensuing atrocities in Odessa and elsewhere)? Did someone research and present the facts? What were the decisions and acts of ia Nuland, Clinton, Obama, relevant leadership of the EU and European nations, Parubiy, Jatsenyuk? Who were the snipers? In short: who were the perpetrators?
Martin, you are asking for quite a bit there. None of us here have immunity from prosecution. Of course you know if you are a prosecutor and you are on the right side of this issue then you could convene a Grand Jury and/or manufacture an investigation at the UN and turn up several names, perhaps even associated with Hezbollah. (Remember the STL and the Hariri assassination?) . Evidence is not required. It’s not like some Special Forces commando left an Israeli Passport when he had to evacuate immediately, like was the case down in Ossettia when there were some problems with The Republic Of Georgia back several years ago and Russians unexpectedly stormed intelligence positions. Be realistic.
LJ, thanks for your comment! I hope I didn’t misinterpet you:
First of all, it seems I didn’t express myself very clearly, so I want to clarify that in no way did I want to propose any other reader here to research and present the facts about how the coup was organised and carried out. What I meant was to ask if there is a review of the present state of knowledge about this. I am sure we all realise it would be very important. Most likely, there are social scientists and journalists who work on this.
I do think that it is crucial that the clearest possible picture of the planning and realisation of the coup be determined and spread, with as much proof and fact as possible. After all, this is a hideous crime, and if it is not exposed, there will be less than needed be to deter more of the same.
Of course it is quite a task with formidable obstacles and may be unrealistic, and historians say it probably will take a long time to establish the whole truth. Clearly, though, there already exist a lot of clues and evidence (as we have seen on CN), and I don’t see that starting out/continuing in the direction of the goal of knowing what happened is unrealistic at all. Speed and patience seem both to be required.
BBC has published a report called “The untold story of the Maidan massacre”
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31359021
In this report the author suggests the protesters staged the firing on the protesters to ignite the revolution.
“BBC has published a report called “The untold story of the Maidan massacre”
Perhaps in preparation of responses to others including but not restricted to
https://www.youtube.com
Kurginyan: Russia Won the Elections in Ukraine With Rejection of Poroshenko
although the title is a misrepresentation through projected notion of “won”.
“Perhaps in preparation of responses to others including but not restricted to”
another released on 25th November 2018.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_6dibpDfo
The voice over is normally done by a British native speaker as this accent is believed to have more gravitas/believe ability.
The productions often have inputs from 5 eyes plus friends.
As the utility of some portals increased whilst others decreased, the use of DVD’s as used in the anti-Yugoslavian campaigns in the 1990’s, one of which was voiced-over either by Mr. Martin Sheen or an impressionist mimicing him, were gradually phased out in certain markets/franchises.
The Zinoviev telegram has also been mimiced on various ocassions as you may be aware, since tribute bands are limited in their material.
“He is my business partner, not my boss.” – Volodymyr Zelenskiy
The recent election of comedian Zelensky was heavily backed by billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, Ukraine’s largest employer of neo-Nazi thugs.
After the Maidan coup d’etat, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov appointed Kolomoyskyi governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Kolomoisky recruited militants from far-right groups such as Patriot of Ukraine, Right Sector (Pravy Sektor) and White Hammer to expand control over the region through violence.
Kolomoisky funded the Aidar, Azov, Donbas, Dnieper-1, and Dnieper-2 battalions that engaged in a brutal campaign of looting, torture and murder during Kiev’s so-called Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) military assault against eastern Ukraine, starting in April 2014.
Kolomoisky conspired with Turchinov, Arsen Avakov, Valentin Nalivaychenko, and Andriy Parubiy to prepare a terror attack on anti-Maidan activists in Odessa. On May 2, 2014, Kolomoisky’s Dnieper-1 battalion and Right Sector thugs transferred from Dnepropetrovsk, joining armed militants from Kiev and Lvov in the murderous attack and the burning of the House of Trade Unions in Odessa.
Kolomoisky-funded terror battalions continued their rampage across Ukraine. In July 2014, a warrant for Kolomoyskyi’s arrest was issued in Russia for “organizing the killing of civilians”.
In September 2014, Norwegian channel TV2 presented footage of the Azov battalion flying flags with the symbols of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi party. Several Azov fighters have ties to American white supremacists. The State Department described Azov’s political wing a “nationalist hate group,” and human rights workers call it a haven for neo-Nazis.
In October 2014, Kolomoisky admitted having Israeli and Cypriot citizenship, apart from his Ukrainian one. This is a violation of Ukrainian law, which bans dual citizenship. “The Constitution says that dual citizenship is banned. It doesn’t ban triple,” Kolomoisky told a journalist.
Kolomoisky has a long history of employing private forces to resolve business disputes. For example, in 2015 a group of armed men linked to Dnieper-1 group occupied the Kyiv headquarters of the UkrTransNaft oil company in a fight for control with Poroshenko’s government. That 2015 dispute appeared to be resolved with a deal, ensuring that Kolomoisky’s finances would not be subject to investigation, while removing him from both his governorship and leadership in UkrTransNaft.
After Kolomoisky was fired from his gubernatorial post in March 2015, he obtained a U.S. Visa. In 2016, when his holding in Privatbank was forcibly nationalized, Kolomoisky fled for Geneva, Switzerland and then Tel Aviv, Israel. The oligarch also spent a great deal of time in the United States.
Kolomoisky continued to battle against Poroshenko from abroad. His television channel in Ukraine broadcast allegations that the Poroshenko had killed his own brother, who died in a car accident in Moldova in 1997. The president denied the allegations. Kolomoisky also set up his own nationalist political party UKROP – its name based on a derogatory Russian name for Ukrainians – which won two seats in parliament in 2016, but went nowhere after that.
Kolomoyski owns 70% of the 1+1 Media Group whose TV channel 1+1 aired “Servant of the People”, the comedy series in which Volodymyr Zelensky played the role of president of Ukraine.
On 31st March 2019 Zelensky won the most votes in the first round of Ukraine’s real presidential elections, resulting in Yulia Tymoshenko being eliminated from the next round. On April 21, 2019 Zelensky went on to win the presidential election.
Kolomoisky’s proximity to the presidency certainly reflects what the US State Department describes as “Ukraine’s vibrant democracy five years after the 2014 Revolution of Dignity”.
For more on Zelensky’s close “partnership” with Kolomoisky read:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-election-zelenskiy-oligarch/mutual-friends-and-borrowed-cars-how-ukraines-would-be-leader-is-linked-to-tycoon-idUSKCN1RS147
I’m so sorry for Mr Ivan Katchanovski, Who has worked so hard to prove what really happened. It’s horrible to know what the truth is, and have the rest of the world dance around celebrating the falsehoods they prefer to embrace. This sounds like the mystery bullet, the mystery puff of smoke from the grassy knoll, the shooter on the expressway ramp, and the missing autopsy data and body parts — the reasons why Truth is not “known” about the JFK assassination.
Some Truths are deemed by “authority” and by citizens to be too dangerous to be accepted. Was it always so? I don’t know. Probably. Sad.
For a nifty list of the NYTimes bullshit go to –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times#Failure_to_report_famine_in_Ukraine
” Misrepresentation of the Maidan massacre and its investigation by Western media and governments is puzzling. ”
Oh , please , it’s the farthest thing from “puzzling”. It’s exactly what anyone with half a brain would expect.
Yes, obviously. Unfortunately, even the few academics who critique official narratives insist on pretending that our institutions in the West are honorable and trustworthy. Any falsehoods told by these institutions are therefore “puzzling.”
I’ve had a recent falling out with my younger brother – probably a permanent estrangement – over this very issue/question/truth. He wants to maintain that no matter how vile, destructive, and duplicitous our “own” are, they are none-the-less preferable to the “autocrats and tyrants” that our “undeniably good” nation have opposed and held in check during the American Century. Nothing I can or have said will sway him, and any evidence to the contrary he dismisses as either disinformation or conspiracy theory. This rift started immediately after the coup in Ukraine when I made the “error” of disputing “Russian aggression” and the “illegal annexation” of Crimea. He’s not stupid; much more intelligent than I am. But, I’ve come to the sad conclusion that he is fundamentally deceived.
I appreciate all the information and research provided by the many readers of this site, but I confess I rarely follow the links. And I have not spent even three minutes of my time on any conspiracy promoting sites (note: I am not conflating the former with the latter.) It isn’t necessary when you can appreciate the big picture, which is fairly simple. US empire is intransigent, blind, and unredeemable. I was fairly certain, when George W. Bush addressed the US Congress promoting the second AUMF, and he used the language of “generational war” and “the global war on terror” that I was listening to the first draft of the obituary of the human race.
One for your brother:
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe — ‘None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free’
“Similarly, there are no mainstream media reports of the visual examinations of bullet holes and their impact points by the government investigators that determined that one German ARD television room at the Hotel Ukraina was shot from the direction of the Main Post Office, which was at the time the headquarters of the Right Sector.”
Perhaps not coincidentally, the German media were among the very few western sources to pursue the story and investigate the Maidan shooting–at least for a while. What follows is a report from the German news program ARD Monitor [in German]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DRHxV4Bb7w
And here is an English translation of the show’s transcript:
https://wikispooks.com/w/images/5/52/Maidan_snipers.pdf
Very enlightening!
“Western media silence also greeted a recent statement by Anatolii Hrytsenko … that the investigation of the massacre has been stonewalled because of the involvement of someone from the current leadership of Ukraine in this mass killing.”
That someone is very likely a man named Andriy Parubiy, who helped found the ‘Social-National Pary of Ukraine’ (i.e., like National-Socialism) back in the 90s , and who worked ‘security’ at the Maidan in 2014 before being appointed Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine by Poroshenko later that year. He is now the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s national parliament:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Parubiy
Enjoy …
Thanks to CN and Dr. Katchanowski. Until now, I believed in extremist snipers being at fault, but I must admit that without any deep knowledge about Maidan events.
Western policy of tolerating lawlessness of Ukrainian government is counterproductive. Giving cover to murders and other excesses necessitates having partial and/or pliable prosecutors, and then, surprise! corruption does not seem to be weeded out. The hysterically nationalists narrative that took sway in Ukraine is very costly and the country is a bottomless pit in respect to aid, loans etc. For starters, 5% if the pitiful GDP is wasted in the military that Poroshenko so proudly placed on his campaign posters (Army, Language, Faith, un-inspiring imitation of fascism), another 5% or more is lost by breaking economic ties with Russia, and foreign investment is scant due to lack of confidence in the legal system. I would guess that oligarchs are weary of investing in their homeland as well.
Thank You Mr. Katchanovsky,
For your detailed forensic analysis for the pivotal Maidan Massacre of 2014 that has avoided so much of the MSM reports ever since. The same could be said for the Odessa Labor Hall crematory fire that same year. The Nazi fingerprints of the Bandera Boys of the Pravy Sector and Svoboda Parties lies on top of both. Are these the allies the US is seeking as new President Ez seeks a rapprochement with Russia over Donetsk and Luhansk Repubklics, perhaps by finally beginning to implement the Minsk Accords?
Article of interest at link below.
————————————————-
US-EU Clash on How to Install a Puppet Regime in Ukraine. Victoria Nuland
By Global Research News
Global Research, February 07, 2014
Oriental Review
https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-eu-clash-on-how-to-install-a-puppet-regime-in-ukraine-victoria-nuland/5367794
I certainly hope that the truth about this emerges, and is accepted as such, at some point in even the distant future. However, the experience in the US with regard to virtually everything indicates that the made-up scenarios will prevail. Conspirators write phony history, and then condemn the people who write real history of spreading “conspiracy theories.”
Sheep without horns will follow the devil, ewe or wolf.
Ukrainian proverb
Good piece on details of the killing.
But, of course, interests far removed from the streets of Kiev were involved in the matter.
As far as, “changing the wound locations invalidates the entire reconstruction,” well, yes, but that same practice, precisely, was part of the investigation into John Kennedy’s murder.
We have ample testimony and supporting evidence around what was done in the President’s autopsy to be certain.
Yet, that complete fabrications of the Warren Report yet stand.
If that’s the case in the United States, with its being such a center of world attention and publicity, why would we expect anything more in Ukraine?
The people who staged this understood that they did not have to worry about such details.
Remember, we have the overheard words of the unpleasant Victoria Nuland, Neocon and former high State Department official, that the US had spent $5 billion dollars on the coup.
And, oh, by the way, we have the same kind of ongoing fraud in the investigation of the downing of Flight MH-17 over Ukraine.
The incompetent Ukrainian armed forces, proven so in Donbass, led by the most incompetent government in perhaps European history, that of Poroshenko, were without question responsible for that event.
Yet years later, the Dutch, under American pressure so as not to embarrass their freshly-installed coup government , sit on the evidence and have made only the most generalized and prejudiced statements, ignoring evidence.
Fake news? That’s nothing. We have fake events now, regularly.
That’s what happens when you run a vast empire and employ all kinds of manipulation and dirty tricks for it, as the US does full-time now.
“We have fake events now, regularly.”
In coercive societies where “mistakes” are punishable through a plethora of means, when expectations deviate from outcomes beliefs are used to bridge doubt to attain expected comfort, facilitating futher deviation of expectations and outcomes, increasing the dosage of beliefs required to bridge doubt to attain expected comfort.
The opponents’ do not often fail to amuse whilst facilitating opportunities.
The Ukrainian Nazis were not the only ones involved in the putsch there – the USA provided it’s share of Nazi thugs.
I think the largest thing to take away from this article is more evidence that clearly shows how much the NY Times and other mainstream media are often no more than parrots for our government in its desperate attempts to keep a dying profit system alive.
The politically and ideologically motivated lies about the Maidan massacre seem to have been a direct precursor of the similarly motivated lies that created and perpetuated the massive Russiagate hoax and all the mythology that still surrounds it. Both political psyops are intimately related, and deconstruction of the fake Russiagate narrative will no doubt lead to more accurate and responsible reporting about what happened on the Maidan on Feb. 20, 2014. We are all indebted to the author for this very fine article on what actually took place during the Maidan massacre, and I pray that further reporting by him and other responsible journalists and scholars will give some solace to the families and loved ones of those who were brutally murdered on that day by the fascists and their hired gunmen.
I don’t think the U.S. government has told the truth about anything in many decades–certainly not in my lifetime which commenced soon after WWII. They only dispense self-serving lies and false narratives rather than factual news through their media mouthpieces. The history books are mostly fiction, written to justify great crimes and entrench despicable criminals in positions of vast power. Our real-world environment is a lot like that described in the fictional movie “The Matrix,” though it’s not as elegant and much more malign. The parasites feeding off us are members of our own species rather than emotionless machines never programmed with what most humans would consider a moral code. These are purposeful people who have deliberately chosen predation as their modus operandi while they misrepresent themselves as paragons of altruism and will swear to you that they do it all for your own good. I don’t say these things vacuously. The lesson has been repeatedly reinforced over many decades in a constantly devolving society. The trend is unmistakable, and history is NOT bending towards justice. That was just wishful thinking on MLK’s part.
(Is there absolutely anything of mine that will ever escape moderation? Geez, I’m like 12 for 12 since I returned.)
Maybe the moderator is a machine, and resents your dissing machines? Seriously. you are one of our best commenters Realist. I hope you keep sharing your insights here. I am 100% on the same page with your comment above. I am spending time now on Caitlin Johnstone’s blog, where she explains how narratives now control the world, and manipulate most people constantly to do their bidding. These false narratives have successfully turned most of us into mindless puppets. People think they are free, and following their own ideas, when in fact they are only operating within the grooves laid down by their hidden masters. Most of Plato’s work was trying to point this out to his fellow Athenians.
Your mentioning Caitlin Johnstone is really timely, mike. She is presently the most insightful and articulate voice on the internet, able to explain precisely what kind of skullduggery Washington is up to at any given moment in time. I think her recent explanation for the blatant overkill directed against Julian Assange is spot on:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-22/prosecution-julian-assange-infinitely-bigger-assange
It’s to ensure that no other journalist will ever again be emboldened to take them on and reveal any of their bloody secrets. It’s the modern day equivalent of posting his head on a pike outside the city gates.
As mike k says, your insights are valued Realist. What I have loved about the CN comment board through these past few years is the regularity of hearing from a mature set of readers who are studied, keep up with present affairs, and show evidence of broad and deep reflection. “Valid, trenchant, and putting a fine point on things” is how I would describe your contributions. Thank you.
“history is NOT bending towards justice”
Try not to conflate history with “The United States of America” since conflating a moment in a process with the lateral process in toto limits perceptions and opportunities.
“U.S. government has (not) told the truth about anything (much) in many decades”
Perhaps considering “We the people hold these truths to be self-evident” will aid perspective.
One of the myth re-enforcement practices of “law” is the oath ceremony – “To tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” which is a pre-determination of “failure” and subjection to subsequent forms of coercion.
The link below is not the “truth”, the “whole truth” and “nothing but the truth” but may help catalyse lateral network analyses.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51474.htm entitled
Julian Assange exposed the crimes of powerful actors, including Israel
There were many directing traffic on Kreshatik during January and February 2014, not all dispensing bulka and salt until the produkti ran out.
Yes, Olya Pola, I agree, that’s Julian’s “crime”, exposing the actual official crimes, what politicians have referred to as “unintended consequences” or “hard choices”. While the members of their “national security” infrastructure (including, sadly, “respected” members of our Ivy League institutions! and MSM! who indirectly, perhaps, benefit from what is done behinds the scenes and freely use the convenient/threatening excuse of “National Security” to help keep a lid on it…..
“Yes, Olya Pola, I agree, that’s Julian’s “crime”, exposing the actual official crimes..”
Partly as a consequence of expectation/framing some assign significance to some aspects of phenomena thereby de-emphasing other aspects of the same phenomena, limiting their own perception and opportunities.
Sometimes this is tested by others through others’ usage of windowdressing, including but not restricted to logical flow – the art of the spectacle, and the “reactions” to such as observed by Mr. Rove and others.
Although apparently not perceived by some the key sentence in my comment is:
The link below is not the “truth”, the “whole truth” and “nothing but the truth” but may help catalyse lateral network analyses.
The catalysation of lateral network analyses can be achieved by considering the methods illustrated in
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51474.htm entitled
Julian Assange exposed the crimes of powerful actors, including Israel
The reference to the title of the link is the prelude to the sentence:
There were many directing traffic on Kreshatik during January and February 2014, not all dispensing bulka and salt until the produkti ran out.
There were many languages spoken by those directing traffic on Kreshatik during January and February 2014 and hence this was an encouragement to not restrict the lateral network analysis through framing – don’t blame everything on the Jews.
“our Ivy League institutions”
This is another framing precluding perception; the we/our frame, the obfuscation of difference through attempted incorporation.
You may not be unaware but in much of the world to be called “An American” is to be insulted in various ways with myriad connotations including but not restricted to:
1. Denying your and other cultures and identities.
2. Being obese by attaining the size of two continents through gluttony.
3. Being a leech feeding on others.
4. Displaying attitudes and practices based primarily on coercion and levels of panic.
5. Being in a state of almost constant fear.
To others the notion of we/our is restricted to being equal and different, and that is a prime constituent of why the self-designated “The United States of America” perceives others as an existential threat including but not restricted to some of the population residing in or citizen’s of the self-designated “The United States of America”, Mr. Assange and the Russian Federation.
Mr. Burn’s words rendered in English have validity:
Lord what a gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us.
Mr. Cohen had some level of blat in the Soviet Union and has an increased level of blat in the Russian Federation.
Mr. Cohen has a facility in the Russian language and some understanding of connotations of Russian words and constructions.
Mr. Cohen understandably is a product of his own culture and hence is prone to resort to projection despite his attempts to avoid such practices.
In respect of Crimea although he recognises his and others’ limited access to data and sources, his representation of options and decisions reached are conditioned by projections of perception of purpose, methods of strategic formulation and evaluation, predicated on different perceptions of how to address Gordian knots.
However all data-streams have utility.
https://therealnews.com/stories/u-s-hoped-putin-would-be-a-sober-yeltsin-rai-with-stephen-cohen-3-5
Ukraine on the march, fulfilling its “European aspirations”
https://www.thenation.com/article/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/
“Yes, but is it good for the…”
Ivan – Thank you for this detailed analysis. There is much to study and fact check and your assertions seem well explained in the evidence. One doesn’t have to go as far in history as John Adams for modern day references. This so much reminds me of the lies and trajectories in the RFK assassination. Sometimes an event closer to home (US) makes a newer event farther away (Ukraine) more relevant and fresh. Again, thank you so much for this.
Undeniable compelling stuff! – Adding to the already insupportable weight of evidence about MSM false narratives.
Another writer here on CN refers to “Herd mentality” acceptance of these narratives, but we must reflect that herd sentiment can be swayed in any direction and that the truth should ultimately be of some advantage.
I think the answer is fairly obvious. People 250 years ago were more honest than they are today.
What makes you think barbarians slaughtering indigenaries and declaring the Monroe doctrine were more honest than people are today.