The most recent book on Ukraine's year-old revolution is called “EuroMaidan: The Untold Story.” And its author, Ukrainian journalist Sonya Koshkina, attempts to do just that: tell the story that happened behind the scenes.
In her ultimate
guide to those events, Koshkina tells about former President Viktor
Yanukovych’s fear of his political opponent Yulia Tymoshenko, what
his regime did to wreak havoc among the protesters and put an end to
the revolution.
The book became a
hit right after it was published on Feb. 20. It was impossible to
find it in bookstores in the first week. There is a good reason: the
book keeps the reader engaged until the last page.
Koshkina, 29, whose
real name is Kseniya Vasylenko, is the chief editor of lb.ua news
website and a prominent political reporter. Having been in the
profession for more than 12 years, she managed to establish good
relations with many Ukrainian politicians and benefit from insider
information regarding the EuroMaidan and the runaway Yanukovych.
Some revelations in
the book are really shocking. Koshkina writes that during the
tumultuous events Ukraine imported Russian weapons which riot police
used during clashes with protesters in January and February 2014.
In January 2014, the
then Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko’s gave an order to
head of supply department Pavlo Zinov to buy 6,020 weapons from
Russia. Cynically, in the accompanying documents the cargo was marked
as “humanitarian aid.” It included grenades that Berkut riot
police threw at protesters, the author notes. Because the first batch
of weapons failed to stop the revolution, in late January Zinov
brought from Russia another batch of 7,386 weapons.
Koshkina writes that
Yanukovych regime went as far as to give out weapons from the
interior ministry stock to gangs of hired thugs that were instructed
to attack protesters in Kyiv.
On Feb. 18 one of
the bloodiest clashes between EuroMaidan supporters and the police
took place. This was after the warehouses of the Ministry of Internal
Affairs were unsealed and weapons that were kept there were given
with no registration to hired thugs and riot police. “Pump action
guns were very popular. Some (thugs) even managed to take two rifles.
A least 300 Kalashnikovs were distributed (that day),” the author
writes.
Besides street
protests, Koshkina describes the details of intrigues that were
taking place in parliament those days as lawmakers were trying to
find solution to the crisis. Some of those political maneuvers look
comical.
For example, on Jan.
16, 2014 Yanukovych pressured the parliament into adopting a number
of laws that significantly limited civil rights and freedoms in
Ukraine, and were dubbed “dictatorship laws.” Parliament speaker
and representative of pro-Yanukovych Party of Regions Volodymyr Rybak
knew what legislation the parliament was about to adopt, but did not
want to be held responsible for the act.
So, he arranged for
the opposition leaders to lock him up in his office and keep him
there that day, according to some politicians interviewed for the
book. According to the parliament’s procedure, the session cannot
be opened without a speaker. As a result, the laws were adopted with
numerous procedural violations after the session was called open by a
Deputy speaker, Communist Ihor Kaletnyk.
The book also
provides some insight into Yanukovych’s character and lifestyle.
Apparently, Tymoshenko was his biggest paranoid fear, according to
lawmaker and Donetsk businessman Serhiy Taruta.
Yanukovych put
Tymoshenko behind bars out of fear that she could remove him from
power. He was so preoccupied with controlling Tymoshenko that her
prison cell was stuffed with spy equipment and cameras were “even
in the lavatory,” Tymoshenko said in an interview for the book
after her release. When EuroMaidan protests erupted Yanukovych
believed that Tymoshenko organized the crowds and ran them from
prison, which was as far removed from reality as Yanukovych is from
his office now.
The book shows that
Yanukovych had little interest in state affairs and preferred to
spend a lot of his time hunting and partying instead. During such
parties he used to tell his allies made-up stories which he insisted
were authentic. According to one of these tall tales, he was trained
as an astronaut during Soviet times. He also claimed to have taken
part in a car race in a desert as he was chased by armed Bedouins. As
Yanukovych was telling those stories he “did not specify how he got
into the race and what angered the Bedouins,” Koshkina writes.
While the author
attempts to show some dark sides of the EuroMaidan revolution, the
book omits some other important details.
One of these is a secret meeting between Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the
far right groups of EuroMaidan protesters, and Yanukovych on Feb. 20.
Yarosh became a prominent leader of the revolution during the late
stages of the revolution and unsucessfully ran for president last
May. He was later elected to parliament.
Koshkina describes
in details Tymoshenko’s visit to Maidan on Feb. 22, the day she
was released from prison, but fails to mention that most of the
protesters were not happy with her arrival and welcomed Tymoshenko
with shouts “we were not here because of you.” Such gaps in the
story about EuroMaidan may disappoint some of the meticulous readers.
The book also fails to make it any clearer who gave and executed the
order to murder the protesters during Feb. 18-20, and before those
bloody events that killed more than 100 people.
The book is written
in Russian and Ukrainian can be purchased in Bukva book store for Hr 249,
internet shop Grenka.ua for Hr 149, Booklya internet shop for Hr 145.
Kyiv Post staff
writer Nataliya Trach can be reached at [email protected]
