On Jan. 22, snipers from behind police lines took the first lives of the EuroMaidan Revolution -- those of Belarussian Mykhailo Zhyznevsky, Armenian native Serhiy Nihoyan and Ukrainian Roman Senyk from Lviv Oblast.
Those deaths, and the murders of more than 100
other demonstrators from Feb. 18-20, ultimately drove a frightened President
Viktor Yanukovych from power on Feb. 22.
But a year later, there is still no justice –
and the killers may still be on the police force.
Nina Zhyznevska, the mother of Mykhailo
Zhyznevsky, still has no answers about who killed her son, the 25-year-old
activist who lived in Ukraine since 2005.
Ukraine’s police and prosecutors say they are
still investigating, that more than 2,000 people have been questioned and at
least 1,167 criminal proceedings opened.
In written comments to the Kyiv Post, the
prosecutor’s office said two members of Berkut riot police are held in
pre-trial detention as suspects. Another
suspect, Dmytro Sadovnyk, the former head of Berkut police unit, has an arrest
warrant against him.
Sadovnyk was earlier arrested in connection
with the organizing mass killings on Feb. 18-20 and then released by the
Pechersky district court placed under house arrest. Sadovnyk fled the country
on Oct. 3.
Nina Zhyznevska says the family’s life is much
more difficult without her son.
“It’s so painful for us to know that our son’s
killer is still out of prison a year after,” she told the Kyiv Post in a phone conversation from
the Belarussian city of Homel. “We merely don’t know what they investigated, we
know nothing.”
Yevhenia Zakrevska, a lawyer representing
alleged victims of police brutality, is certain the Interior Ministry and
prosecutors are stalling the investigation.
“They didn’t investigate anything until March,
even though many Maidan activists were ready to testify,” Zakrevska said,
adding that Berkut police officers are the prime suspects.
“Without their evidence we won’t have much
progress in the investigation,” Zakrevska explains. “Also those former police
officers won’t feel free to witness as long as there are no real changes in the
law enforcement sphere. Because the information may be used against them.”
She says that many police officers involved in
the mass killings of the protesters are still working their jobs.
Zhyznevska and her husband plan to visit her
son’s grave on Jan. 22. She has photographs of him, but says a crucifix and
cell phone that he used are still in the possession of prosecutors.
Zhyznevska hopes that her son will be given a
status of Hero of Ukraine. “It’s the only thing that can protect his memory now
as many people still treat my son as a bandit and Nazi,” she explains, noting
that hooligans vandalize his grave.
On the anniversary of the start of the
EuroMaidan Revolution on Nov. 21, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a
decree to award the honors to the murdered activists also known as Heavenly
Hundred.
Tamara Shevchuk, an activist from Kyiv and a
friend of Zhyznevsky, plans to go to Hrushevshoho Street on Jan. 22 to
commemorate. It’s still hard for her to recall the day she heard the tragic
news. Shevchuk also has little hope that they will ever find out the truth
about the killings.
“Mykhailo dreamt to buy an apartment for his
parents,” Shevchuk, the 19-year-old Kyivan, recalls. “He never did that, but
with the help of his friends and EuroMaidan activists his parents now live in a
new apartment.”
In the meantime, Diana Gebre, 22-year-old
Kyivan, left for Dnipropetrovsk to take part in a memorial service for another
EuroMaidan Revolution victim, Nigoyan, in his native village of
Bereznuvativka. They met in December, a
month before his death, and spent most of their time on EuroMaidan.
“I passed by the barricade once and his eyes
just caught my attention,” Gebre recalls. “He stopped me and warned that I
couldn’t go further because I’m ‘very beautiful.’ It was on Dec. 26.”
Later, when activists asked him who she is, he answered “that’s my
wife.”
Gebre said he was ready to stay until the
victorPy of the EuroMaidan Revolution. His parents, however, didn’t believe the
protests would be successful, Gebre said, but that Nihoyan was “truly Ukraine’s
patriot.”
The year for her hasn’t been easy.
“When I knew he was killed I couldn’t do
anything, I just went to St. Michael’s Cathedral. I came back to Maidan only a
couple of days later,” Gebre explained. “But despite the hardship there were
good moments too, as I met lots of new friends also because of the revolution.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at
[email protected]
