Halya Coynash: Suspected Maidan killer and three other ex-Berkut officers flee to Russia

Published April 16, 2017. Updated April 17 at 9:08 am

Berkut officers take aim at EuroMaidan protesters with shotguns near the entrance to the Mothercare store in the Globus shopping mall on the corner of Maidan Nezalezhnosti on Feb. 18, 2014. While the Berkut mainly used less lethal buckshot ammunition, it emerged on Jan. 23, 2014 that they had also improvised more dangerous weapons by taping nails and other metal objects to stun grenades, to produce shrapnel. At least two protesters were also shot dead on Jan. 22, 2014, allegedly with the use of live ammunition.

Photo by Anastasia Vlasova

In a move which was easily to be predicted and averted, a former ex-Berkut officer suspected of direct involvement in the killing of Maidan activists has been allowed to escape justice. Vitaly Honcharenko was released from custody on April 6 and on April 13 crossed, unimpeded, into Russia, together with three former Kharkiv Berkut colleagues.

The four men – Honcharenko, Oleksandr Kostyuk; Vladislav Masteha and Artem Voilokov – have produced a video, claiming that they were carrying out their ‘constitutional duty’ during Euromaidan, “countering radicals and protecting the life of law-abiding citizens”.