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Six years ago, downtown Kyiv was ablaze with massive protests against then-President Viktor Yanukovych. After Yanukovych fled Kyiv on Feb. 21, 2014, protest leaders pledged to punish him and others accused of murdering at least 78 activists during the revolution.
But only two people are in jail for crimes against EuroMaidan participants. Both were hired pro-Yanukovych thugs. Not a single official, police officer, judge or prosecutor has gone to prison for the EuroMaidan crimes.
The main EuroMaidan case – which looks into into the murder of 48 protesters in a single day in February 2014 – collapsed after five ex-police officers on trial were released by the Kyiv Court of Appeal in December as part of a prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia’s proxies in the Donbas.
A few weeks before that, the department investigating the EuroMaidan cases in the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine was eliminated, and the cases were passed to the State Investigative Bureau. The next blow was dealt in January, when Yanukovych’s former lawyer was appointed as the first deputy chief of the bureau.
Any hope for justice for the victims of the government crackdown on EuroMaidan is now in grave danger, activists and lawyers for the victims’ families say.
“For all these six years, the investigations of the EuroMaidan killings have never been under such a threat,” said Ihor Lutsenko, a former EuroMaidan activist who was abducted and tortured by hired thugs in January 2014.
Prosecutor General Ruslan Riaboshapka has denied accusations of blocking EuroMaidan cases, saying that the investigations will continue.
Murder trial
Lutsenko’s case is one of the rare successes, as Oleksandr Volkov, who is charged with kidnapping and torturing Lutsenko as well as murdering protester Yuriy Verbytsky, is standing trial.
But it is the exception that proves the rule. The families of 48 EuroMaidan activists killed by the police on Feb. 20 lost their chance for justice when the five former Berkut riot police officers charged with their murders were released to Russia’s proxies on Dec. 28.
Their trial started in 2016 and was expected to come to an end in 2020. But following an agreement between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in Paris on Dec. 9, they were freed as part of a prisoner exchange.
“It was important for Russia not to allow their conviction,” said Yevhenia Zakrevska, a lawyer for EuroMaidan protesters and their families. “Because for our country that conviction would be a sign of reconciliation. And now we’ve lost it.”
Vasyl Aksenin was one of the 48 protesters killed on Feb. 20, 2014. He was fatally wounded in the stomach near the Maidan Nezalezhnosti Square.
His son Yuriy Aksenin thinks that Russia’s demand to include the former Berkut officers in the prisoner exchange proves that the Kremlin was complicit in the EuroMaidan crimes. Aksenin believes that the Berkut officers’ exchange “was totally illegal from the side of the courts, of the prosecutors and of the president.”
Zakrevska and other lawyers representing EuroMaidan protesters agree with him. The initial group of prosecutors in the case were also against releasing the former Berkut officers. However, on the eve of the key court hearing on Dec. 28, Riaboshapka replaced them with a new group of prosecutors.
The new prosecutors presented a letter from Riaboshapka saying that the suspects should be released because they are part of the prisoner exchange. However, no law in Ukraine allows the release of suspects and non-prisoners-of-war as part of prisoner swaps.
The irony is that while the suspects’ lawyers said they should be released because they would not flee, the prosecutors effectively proved that they would flee as part of the prisoner exchange.
Vitaliy Tytych, one of the EuroMaidan lawyers, said he would file a formal complaint to initiate an investigation into crimes that he claims have been committed by Zelensky, Riaboshapka and the court as part of the suspects’ release. Such crimes could include unlawful interference with the judiciary and prosecutors, aiding the escape of fugitives and the issuing of an unlawful court ruling.
The Office of the President, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Kyiv Court of Appeals declined to comment on the issue.
“Now Russia can commit any crime in Ukraine because, in the future, any criminals can be released in prisoner swaps,” Zakrevska said.
Riaboshapka argued that the Prosecutor General’s Office would seek to try the Berkut officers in absentia.
But EuroMaidan lawyers and former investigator Serhii Gorbatuk say that Ukrainian law on in absentia trials contradicts international law and that the exchanged former Berkuts could be convicted only after parliament changes the law.
Russia’s role
Tytych believes Russia was interested in the release of the Berkut officers to hide its possible role in the murders. Russia has denied such involvement.
The Prosecutor General’s Office has investigated a narrative according to which Russia was behind several escalations of the EuroMaidan Revolution from December 2013 to February 2014. According to this theory, Russia aimed to trigger bloodshed in Ukraine to have an excuse to annex Ukrainian territories.
One of the reasons for the theory is the suspicious circumstances surrounding the Feb. 20 murders.
Most of the Berkut officers stationed around Maidan Nezalezhnosti withdrew from the location on the morning of Feb. 20, and only the Black Company, which was involved in the killings, remained.
Tytych believes they were removed to provoke protesters to launch an offensive against the government quarter, providing an excuse for the mass shooting.
Early on the morning of Feb. 20, Ivan Bubenchyk, who calls himself a EuroMaidan protester, started shooting at Berkut officers from the conservatory building on Maidan Nezalezhnosti without apparent reason, although no clashes were going on at the moment. Tytych believes such a sudden move may indicate that Bubenchyk was an agent provocateur.
Bubenchyk denied having any links to Russia or Yanukovych’s regime.
Another suspicious sign is that the authorities placed snipers on roofs from which they could not shoot at the conservatory, as if someone tried to protect Bubenchyk from being killed. A major mystery is why the Berkut officers shot unarmed protesters rather than Bubenchyk himself.
Olga Reshetylova, a human rights activist, says the entire list of 124 people handed over to Russian proxies on Dec. 30 shows different episodes of Russian aggression against Ukraine, which started with the first crackdowns on the EuroMaidan.
“This list is an illustration of Russia’s hybrid war,” she said.
Gorbatuk’s dismissal
Gorbatuk, the former top investigator in charge of EuroMaidan cases, had been working in that role since 2014. He often clashed with his superiors, including prosecutors general, and accused them of interfering with EuroMaidan investigations for political reasons or due to corrupt bargains.
Gorbatuk’s critics have blamed him for what they see as insufficient progress in the investigations.
This contrasts with the position of EuroMaidan protesters’ lawyers, who say Gorbatuk made his best efforts but was often sabotaged by his superiors and by the courts. The lawyers say that Gorbatuk’s independent stance was the main guarantee that EuroMaidan cases would continue.
In October, Riaboshapka sacked Gorbatuk for not agreeing to be vetted under what he called an illegal procedure introduced by Riaboshapka.
He said he had applied to be vetted under a procedure that does not contradict the law.
“It seems that people who reveal violations of the law by the prosecutor general are being removed,” Gorbatuk said.
Gorbatuk has clashed with Riaboshapka and accused him of refusing to authorize 10 notices of suspicion for judges accused of issuing unlawful rulings against EuroMaidan protesters. The prosecutor’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the issue.
That same month, the lawyers and families of EuroMaidan demonstrators criticized the appointment of Viktor Mysyak as the main prosecutor overseeing investigators in the EuroMaidan cases. They accused Mysyak of blocking charges against suspects, which he denies.
Transfer of cases
In November, Riaboshapka transferred the EuroMaidan cases from the Prosecutor General’s Office to the State Investigation Bureau as part of a reorganization of the law enforcement agencies. But the cases were effectively suspended as a result.
The move sparked concerns due to the bureau’s previous controversies. Initially it was headed by Roman Truba, who prosecuted a EuroMaidan activist in 2013 and became the bureau’s chief in 2017 as a result of a competition that anti-corruption activists say was rigged in favor of government loyalists.
Truba was fired in December after a leak of alleged audio recordings seemed to show him taking orders from the Presidential Office.
Iryna Venedyktova, a lawmaker from Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, was appointed by Zelensky as the bureau’s acting chief. However, her first steps triggered even more concerns about EuroMaidan investigations.
On Jan. 2, she appointed Oleksandr Buryak as the bureau’s top investigator in charge of EuroMaidan cases.
Buryak, a former deputy of Truba, was appointed to the bureau in 2017 in the same selection process that civic activists claim was rigged. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Buryak is among the officials featured in alleged audio recordings implicating judges on the Kyiv Administrative District Court, including its head Pavlo Vovk, in obstruction of justice.
On Jan. 20, Venedyktova also appointed Oleksandr Babikov, Yanukovych’s former defense lawyer, as the first deputy head of the bureau.
Venedyktova has been accused of choosing Babikov as a result of a non-transparent and rigged competition. She has denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
Fugitives return
The fate of EuroMaidan cases also looks grim given what has happened with Yanukovych’s cronies.
On Feb. 21, 2014, the day after the mass murder of EuroMaidan protesters, Yanukovych fled Kyiv and went into hiding in Russia. Many of Yanukovych’s top allies also left Ukraine.
But things have improved for them recently. Several of Yanukovych’s top associates – his former deputy chief of staff Andriy Portnov, his Health Minister Raisa Bogatyryova, his Security Service of Ukraine Chief Valery Khoroshkovsky and his Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin – have returned to Ukraine since Zelensky’s election in April.
“I want to give a signal to thousands of people who left Ukraine — it is time to return, build, renovate it,” a confident Portnov said after coming back in May. Andriy Bohdan, Zelensky’s chief of staff, considers Portnov as a friend, even though Portnov routinely calls the EuroMaidan a “criminal revolution.”
Yanukovych was convicted in a treason case in January for urging Russia to invade Ukraine in 2014, but not for EuroMaidan crimes. He lives freely in Russia and his lawyer even suggested in September that he might come back to Ukraine.
It will be impossible to lawfully convict Yanukovych and his top allies in absentia for EuroMaidan crimes and corruption until Ukraine changes its imperfect law on in absentia cases, Gorbatuk and Tytych say.
