‘100% sure Berkut police didn’t shoot people in Kiev’ – ex-Ukrainian interior minister ― RT News
Berkut riot police were targets – not shooters – during the Maidan standoff, ex-Ukrainian Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko said, adding that a fair investigation of the tragic events in Kiev is impossible under the biased, coup-imposed government.
During his interview with Russia’s Channel One, Zakharchenko stressed that he is “100% sure that it wasn't the police” who used firearms against the people during the February Maidan standoff.
“Berkut riot police were without their service weapons. On February 18 and 19, 86 police officers were wounded by gunshots. Fourteen of them died. They were internal troops, military, Berkut, and traffic police, who were shot at their post checkpoint,” he said.
On February 20, Berkut forces and internal troops encountered point shooting in Kiev’s center and “that’s why they actually, began retreating,” the former interior minister explained.
“It’s clear for any reasonable person that if it were the law enforcement officers who opened fire, they would’ve probably been advancing. That would’ve been the reason to use firearms. Meanwhile, they began retreating after the killing of their troops began,” he said.
According to Zakharchenko, the servicemen that were brought to Kiev hospitals had gunshot wounds from 9mm pistols, hunting rifles, buckshots, and smooth-bore weapons.
The ex-minister stressed that the snipers – who fired at both police and demonstrators – were stationed in three buildings, which were under the control of Maidan protestors.
“It was a provocation staged with only one motive – to launch another attack on law enforcement, launch an attack aimed at seizing the governmental buildings and institutes. That’s the logic behind all those events,” he said.
He added that no one is investigating the gunshot wounds received by law enforcement officers during the Maidan standoff.
“Without a nonpartisan international investigation team that would undertake a thorough inquiry into the events that occurred in Ukraine, we won’t get such an objective investigation,” the ex-minister said.
According to Zakharchenko, Western nations – which fully supported the Ukrainian coup – were aware that Maidan radicals had firearms in their possession.
"I had meetings with various international representatives, including the US ambassador to Ukraine, as well as with EU ambassador Jan Tombinski. I repeatedly called them and said that there were firearms at Independence Square,” he said.
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