Those responsible for the mass killing of EuroMaidan protesters will go to prison, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Nov. 21, as Ukrainians marked the second anniversary of the start of the mass popular uprising that toppled a corrupt government, but also sparked Russian aggression against the country.
Poroshenko, visiting a memorial to the “Heavenly Hundred,”
as the dozens of Maidan protesters shot by police sniper fire on Feb. 20, 2014
are known, said those responsible for the massacre had been “cursed by the
people,” Ukrainian news magazine Novoye Vremya reported.
“Morally, they have already been punished: the people have
cursed them, and the Lord has deprived them of their Motherland,” he said. “And
no matter how long those bastards hide in Russia, that which they have done has
no statute of limitations. The procedure of prosecuting them in absentia will
go on only temporarily. They will all go to jail, along with their henchmen.”
The dull gray skies and persistent rain at the memorial
site in Kyiv reflected the somber mood in the Ukrainian capital.
The site is located on Institutska Street, on a hill above
Kyiv’s central square, Maidan Nezalezhnosti – the epicenter of the public
protests against former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The
memorial has the portraits of the dozens of protesters who died on the street
nearby, with a candle and flowers placed by each picture.
Acknowledging public anger with the lack of progress in
investigations and prosecutions of those responsible for opening fire and
killing the largely unarmed Maidan protesters, Poroshenko said he was “also dissatisfied
with the pace of the investigations.”
“(But) the investigations into more than 2,000 crimes
against the protesters do require a lot of effort and time,” the president
said.
He said that much of the evidence of who was behind the
savage attempt to crush the protests had been destroyed before the new
government had gained full control of the law enforcement agencies.
“(There were) many who managed to cover their tracks and
hide,” the president said.
Kyiv Post editor Euan MacDonald can be reached at
[email protected]
