Officers of the Security Service Alpha special force have testified that the teams of snipers who shot and killed protestors during the February 2015 events on Independence Square in Kyiv were controlled by the Russian president's aide Vladislav Surkov, said the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko.
“Just the other day, the SBU leadership told me that the Alpha special force officers testified that Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov gave orders to the groups of foreign snipers on Maidan,” the president said at a ceremony where he presented awards to the families of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes in Kyiv on Friday.
Poroshenko said that investigators had got access to recordings of personal telephone calls between former president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and representatives of Russian law-enforcement agencies. Together they prepared to shoot protestors, he said.
Previously, Head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said on February 18 that Surkov was involved in controlling snipers who shot at demonstrators during the mass protests in February 2014.
Speaking on 1+1 Channel TV on Thursday evening, the SBU chief said that in late 2013 – early 2014 three groups of Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation employees came to Kyiv to organize the dispersal of protestors in the Ukrainian capital.
According to him, former employees of the Alpha special police force had revealed during interrogation where the snipers who shot at protesters and law enforcement officers were placed.
“Investigators have their names, ranks, copies of passports, the dates of their entry and exit, know which means of communication they used, which offices they attended, and how the aide to President Putin, Surkov, gave them orders in Kyiv…” Nalyvaichenko said.
