You're reading: Prosecutor General’s Office says it has lots of evidence of who killed Maidan activists (UPDATED)

Two years have passed since the mass shootings on Feb. 20, 2014, when more than 100 EuroMaidan Revolution protesters were killed. Those who were responsible have still not been put on trial, bolstering claims that the government is incapable of prosecuting the killers.

However, the Prosecutor General’s Office
of Ukraine now says it finally has concrete evidence that proves who was
guilty. Three ex-Berkut special force policemen – Serhiy Zinchenko, Pavlo
Abroskin and Dmytro Sadovnik – are accused of killing at least 39 unarmed
activists. Additionally, Sadovnik is blamed for directing the murderous
crackdown in downtown Kyiv.

There is clear evidence that all three were definitely
involved in the mass killings, Senior Prosecutor Oleksiy Donskiy said during
an interview on Ukrainian online news channel Hromadske.tv on Dec. 29.

“There are video recordings where you can
see that Sadovnik is directing (Abroskin’s and Zinchenko’s) actions,” Donskiy said. “He is giving commands how
they should retreat or where they should secure their positions. This was
obviously not chaotic activity. These actions were managed by Sadovnik from the
moment he arrived there.”

The prosecutor’s office says it will provide
evidence that Zinchenko and Abroskin are directly responsible for the killings
they are charged with.

“We collected sufficient and incontrovertible
evidence of the involvement of the accused in the alleged crimes,” Donskiy said.
He added that the mass killings were done intentionally.

Abroskin’s lawyer says the charges against his client are
false, news agency Ukrainska Pravda reports.

All three men had been in custody since
spring of 2014. On Dec. 28 the Svyatoshyn District Court of Kyiv extended the
detention period of the ex-Berkut members until Feb. 25 of next year.

However, on Sept. 19, 2014, Pechersk
District Court in Kyiv decided to change the preventive measures against
Sadovnik from holding him in custody to house arrest. Soon after that, in
October 2014, the former commander of the Berkut special forces disappeared.

Donskiy says that, even though there is
enough information to prosecute already, a lot of additional information was
lost when Sadovnik disappeared.

“A lot of the evidence was built through (Sadovnik),
through his connections and his subordinates,” Donskiy said.

But
while some of those who did the actual killing may have been identified, there
is still no substantial evidence exposing who ordered the killings.
Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin has been highly criticized for not going after
top officials, leaving the masterminds of the killings untouched.

So
far 27 people have been named as suspects in orchestrating the mass killings,
including former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, former Interior Minster
Vitaliy Zakharchenko and his deputy, Viktor Ratushnyak. But out of the 27, only
five have been arrested.

Most
Ukrainians blame the killings on Yanukovych, who was trying to stay in power. But
some even say that the trail doesn’t end in Kyiv, but leads to the Kremlin – Russian
President Vladimir Putin was on the phone to Yanukovych during the day of the
shootings.

While
the Kremlin denies being involved in the massacre in Kyiv, Putin’s adviser on
Ukraine integration issues Sergei Glazev is on record as having advised
Yanukovych to crush the Maidan protests.

“Either
(Yanukovych) defends Ukrainian statehood and puts down the revolt… or he risks
losing power, in which case Ukraine faces growing chaos and internal conflict,”
Glazev said on Jan. 31, 2013 in an interview with the corporate journal of
Russia’s state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom.

In a previous interview with Radio Svoboda,
Donskiy said that prosecutors were able to trace Russian phone numbers that
ousted President Viktor Yanukovych continuously called during the Maidan
shootings. They concluded that those who used the cell phones were linked to the
Russian armed forces.

Kyiv Post staff writer Ilya Timtchenko can be reached at [email protected]