Ukraine’s police clashed with ultra-nationalists during a rally at a campaign event of presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of the 21-member Batkivshchyna party, before a speech she delivered on Feb. 9 in Kyiv.
Right before Tymoshenko met with her supporters, police detained 20 people who claimed that they came to peacefully rally in support of a proper investigation of the murder of activist Kateryna Handziuk who died in 2018 after an acid attack.
Activists believe that it is Batkivshchyna member Vladislav Manger who is behind the murder of Handziuk. Tymoshenko still did not make any public statement regarding the rally.
The group of protesters who were detained are members of the C14, Unknown Patriot and Traditions & Order groups. Some of them came with covered faces and allegedly possessed traumatic weapons. The ultra-nationalists were arrested and brought to the Podil district police department. The police said that activists who were peacefully protesting were untouched.
According to law enforcement, the ultra-nationalist groups could not explain why they came to the rally and that they were simply trying to disrupt Tymoshenko’s campaign event. The ultra-nationalists claimed that they were beaten by police officers while they were being arrested. The police claim that three officers were hospitalized after receiving eye burns.
With the lack of evidence, the nationalists were released the same day but the police refused to return their belongings seized during the arrest. According to the police, the protesters had traumatic weapons, pepper sprays, brass knuckles, knives – all of which is legal in Ukraine.
Demanding to return their belongings, the nationalists went inside the police building. Taking it as an attempt to seize their department, the police used force and tear gas to get them out, according to the officers. The ultra-nationalists were beaten up by a police reinforcement that arrived shortly and then were arrested again.
National Police Chief Serhiy Knyazev claims that the arrested people were politically motivated to disrupt the peaceful meeting and that the police did everything right.
“Yet another pre-election week. Yet another accusation against the police of lobbying the interests of certain political forces, and yet another confrontation,” Knyazev said. “An attempt to attack the police station – who needs that? We accept (talking with) lawyers, human rights activists — all civilized means of defense – but not such pre-election methods. We will act legally and adequately but without compromise.”
The police said three criminal cases were opened against the ultra-nationalists: threat and violence towards a police officer, the attempt of seizing a government building, and hooliganism. The police promised to investigate the cases but had to release the detained.
Vladyslav Greziev, an activist from Who Ordered Handzuik?, an initiative that organized the rally, believes the police acted illegally and had no reason to arrest “the boys.”
“Nobody assaulted the police department… there were no provocations. It was just a peaceful gathering,” Greziev said. “So why did the police seize their belongings in the police department? Why did they without any grounds aggressively used force against the activists who didn’t fight back?”
Meanwhile, the National Bureau of Investigation has opened a criminal case against the police officers to investigate the abuse of power.
