KYIV – It’s been two years since the launch of the Euro-Maidan protests in November 2013 that sent geopolitical tremors around the globe. The authorities’ crackdown on the three-month revolt that became known as the Revolution of Dignity claimed 121 lives and injured more than 2,000, including law enforcement officers.
Yet not a single criminal conviction has come as a result of the violent events, according to a report on the Euro-Maidan investigations presented to reporters on November 17 by Serhii Horbatiuk, the head of the special investigations unit of the Procurator General’s Office (PGO) of Ukraine.
Although 270 criminal cases have been opened against law enforcement officials – including judges, prosecutors and investigators – none of them have been punished, Mr. Horbatiuk indicated in his remarks, without saying so directly. Additionally, no one from the government of former President Viktor Yanukovych has been charged with a crime related to the Euro-Maidan.
The lack of any punishment against the Euro-Maidan’s persecutors is further evidence that Ukrainian law enforcement structures – particularly the PGO and the police – remain political instruments in the hands of the oligarchy and are failing to serve the public’s interests, political observers said.
“It’s a closed circle of law enforcement bodies covering each other and not allowing for complete investigations,” said Petro Oleshchuk, a political science lecturer at Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. “The system is closed towards serving its own goals and not allowing other interests to enter.”
In his remarks to the press discussing the PGO’s findings, Mr. Horbatiuk dismissed the notion that prosecutors were intentionally undermining the investigations and dragging them out, instead blaming a lack of resources to conduct thorough investigations.
He cited a lack of qualified experts to gather evidence and materials to preserve it, improperly collected evidence in the first stages of the investigations and an overwhelming volume of cases.
Additionally, “a large number of documents were destroyed,” Mr. Horbatiuk said, as quoted by the pravda.com.ua news site.
“The majority of arms involved were transported away, and we’re supposed to review thousands and thousands of samples in order to compare them with samples removed from the bodies of victims. Examinations are taking a year. This is a complex issue and it depends not only on investigators, but on the state apparatus,” he noted.
Yet Mr. Horbatiuk lent credibility to suspicions of sabotage, as he blamed the judiciary for resisting investigative efforts and noted that more than 100 judges were under investigation.
For all their resistance, only four judges have been targeted for criminal charges and have merely been indicted, he said. Not a single judge has been detained or put on trial for issuing illegal rulings.
In addition, seven prosecutors and nine prosecutorial investigators have been indicted, also not detained or put on trial. More than 80 prosecutors are still under investigation, as are more than 200 law enforcement authorities, particularly investigators, he said.
At certain points, Mr. Horbatiuk played with terminology, based on the pravda.com.ua reports.
While he stated that “more than 270 suspects have been held criminally responsible,” he also claimed that “25 citizens have been held criminally responsible at the given moment.” Both statements indicated that no one has been convicted. The first statement referred to “suspects,” while the second statement was in the context of the indictments being made, which can be qualified as being held criminally responsible, even without convictions.
“It’s not unusual for officials to manipulate terms,” Mr. Oleshchuk said. “Someone being arrested and questioned can even be counted as being brought to criminal responsibility.”
In all, more than 2,000 alleged crimes involving 1,000 law enforcement authorities and 2,200 victims are being investigated; more than 5,000 witnesses and victims have been questioned as part of these investigations.
Only 200 protesters throughout Ukraine have been determined by investigators to have been criminally persecuted by authorities; 274 law enforcement officers have been named as suspects in crimes.
Among those who worked in the liquidated Berkut division, five have been arrested, three are being investigated and two are being tried in court. Not a single Berkut officer has offered testimony to help solve a crime, Mr. Horbatiuk said.
As for top Yanukovych administration officials, the Procurator General’s Office determined that the violent dispersal on November 30, 2013, of Euro-Maidan activists from Independence Square – the act that ignited the protests – was initiated by Mr. Yanukovych, former Internal Affairs Minister Vitalii Zakharchenko and former National Security and Defense Council Secretary Andrii Kliuyev.
“Was it necessary to wait until the second anniversary of the Maidan to announce what we already knew on the Maidan?!” Oleh Rybachuk, a former head of the Presidential Secretariat, wrote on the gazeta.ua news site. “The law enforcement bodies aren’t reformed,” he added. “They are acting like trained dogs. They have an owner whose commands they are trained to fulfill.”
Messrs. Yanukovych and Zakharchenko are known to be residing in Russia. Mr. Kliuyev’s whereabouts are unknown. His brother, Serhii, eluded arrest this summer on financial crimes and attempted to flee to Austria, news reports said. His whereabouts also are unknown.
These top leaders gave the orders to disperse the crowd to Volodymyr Sivkovych, the deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council who was seriously injured in a car accident in Moscow in April; Valerii Koriak, the former Kyiv police chief whose whereabouts are unknown; and former Kyiv State Administration Chair (Mayor) Oleksandr Popov, who was charged with illegally dispersing an assembly and abuse of authority. Though Mr. Popov’s trial began in the spring, it has been delayed.
“There was no legal basis for the dispersal,” Mr. Horbatiuk said. “There wasn’t a court ruling, which is the single basis for halting an act of protest.” More than 300 protesters were dispersed, of which 84 were beaten, including 17 students, he said.
During questioning, Mr. Popov told prosecutors that it was Andrii Kliuyev who gave the order to set up the Christmas tree on Independence Square (Maidan), which created the pretext for the violent break-up of the Euro-Maidan participants.
That accusation was vigorously denied by Mr. Kliuyev, and the Procurator General’s Office determined on the very day of his questioning that he was not involved, even releasing a statement to that effect on December 16, 2013.
That move has joined many inconsistencies in the PGO’s version of events throughout the investigations, Mr. Oleshchuk said. “The investigations have been politically tainted throughout,” he said. “The procurator general said earlier there was a Russian role in the Euro-Maidan persecution and has since ruled that out.”
The direct commanders of the November 30, 2013, violent dispersal were Kyiv Berkut Special Operations Commander Serhiy Kusiuk, who was last reported to have fled to Crimea and found work with the Russian police, and Kyiv Police Public Safety Deputy Director Petro Fedchuk, who was found by journalists in January to be working for the Moscow police force.
All the above-mentioned officials have been informed they are suspects in these crimes, while courts are examining indictments against Mr. Popov and four Berkut commanders, including Yevhen Antonov, who continues to serve on the Kyiv police force as the commander of a public safety regiment.
Many of these officials – including Messrs. Yanukovych and Zakharchenko – were also named as suspects in the December 1, 2013, violence on Bankova Street.
As examples of judges undermining the investigations, Mr. Horbatiuk pointed to the Pechersk District Court’s ongoing review – which began in the summer of 2014 – of a request by prosecutors to cancel the amnesty obtained during the Euro-Maidan by Messrs. Koriak, Fedchuk, Sivkovych and Oleh Marynenko, the Kyiv police public safety director who also is a suspect in the violence of November 30, 2013.
The courts also neglected to unite the indictments against Mr. Popov and other Berkut commanders into a single criminal case, which will force victims to come to court repeatedly in order to testify, Mr. Horbatiuk said.
“The sabotage is occurring on the part of all the government bodies,” Mr. Oleshchuk said. “The Internal Affairs Ministry has refused to offer information about Berkut officers. Each body is trying to cover its own people.”
It was Mr. Yanukovych who gave the order for the Verkhovna Rada to vote on January 16, 2014, for bills severely limiting the individual rights and freedoms of citizens that became known as the “dictatorship laws.”
Indictments related to that vote have been issued for Oleksandr Yefremov, the leader of the Party of Regions parliamentary faction who was released this month from electronic surveillance, Parliamentary Tally Committee Chair Serhii Hordiienko and committee member Oleksandr Stoian.
Mr. Yefremov is currently on trial for abusing his authority in helping to lead the vote for the dictatorship laws. He told reporters he did nothing illegal.
“The procedure of [the dictatorship laws’] approval led to an escalation,” said Mr. Horbatiuk.
The PGO hasn’t been able to establish who was responsible for the first Euro-Maidan murders on January 22, 2014, of Serhii Nihoyan, Mykhailo Zhyznevskyi and Roman Senyk, Mr. Horbatiuk said. The shots killing them were fired at a distance of not more than three meters, he said.
Regarding the deadliest days of February 18-20, 2014, the Procurator General’s Office submitted an indictment of an unnamed Berkut division commander for fulfilling a clearly criminal command with the use of physical force, abuse of authority and illegal use of firearms.
Mr. Zakharchenko, Deputy Internal Affairs Minister Viktor Ratushniak and Supplies Department Director Pavlo Zinov have been named among the suspects in the illegal distribution on February 20, 2014, of firearms to the so-called “titushky,” or thugs hired by the government to beat and kill Euro-Maidan protesters.
The titushky received 408 automatic rifles and 90,000 bullets, Mr. Horbatiuk said. Five have been named as suspects and only one arrested.
“What was in the heads of those who decided to distribute such a large amount of arms and bullets to these titushky?” Mr. Horbatiuk said. “Government officials went beyond all bounds and were prepared for the wide-scale use of these arms.”
INTERPOL, the international police organization, refuses to declare searches for suspects involved in any of the Maidan-related crimes, citing political persecution and refusing to elaborate further, Mr. Horbatiuk noted.
A trial in absentia can be held to consider the Ukrainian government’s criminal charges against Mr. Yanukovych, alleging his involvement in a scheme to use public funds to establish a private telecommunications network, only once former Finance Minister Yurii Kolobov, also alleged to be involved in the scheme, is extradited from Spain, where he remains under arrest, Mr. Horbatiuk said.
“All these tales about titushky, the organizers and the illusory prospect of holding them responsible reflect either the complete lack of professionalism of investigators or intentional sabotage,” Serhiy Rudenko, a veteran political observer at Espreso TV, wrote on his Facebook page.