Kiev carnage carried out from opposition building
Ukraine’s former security chief confirms that the snipers who killed dozens of people during last month’s anti-government protests in the capital Kiev operated from a building controlled by the opposition.
In an interview with Russia’s Rossiya-1 TV channel on Thursday, former head of the Security Service of Ukraine Aleksandr Yakimenko said shots that killed both policemen and protesters in February were fired from the building which was under the full control of the opposition and particularly Maidan Commandant Andrey Parubiy.
“Shots came from the Philharmonic Hall. Maidan Commandant Parubiy was responsible for this building. Snipers and people with automatic weapons were ‘working’ from this building on February 20,” Yakimenko said.
The former chief of Ukraine’s security service also said Parubiy has been in contact with US Special Forces and they may have arranged the deadly shootings.
Parubiy was appointed as the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine after the opposition took power in the former Soviet state.
The remarks came after a recent leaked phone call between EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton and Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet revealed that Ukraine’s opposition had hired snipers to kill both police officers and demonstrators last month.
In the 11-minute conversation, Paet said the February killings were carried out by snipers hired by the Maidan coalition, which is the main provocateur of the crisis in Kiev.
The Estonian official also noted that ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych had not been behind the fatal shootings.
Moscow has called for the formation of an independent group to investigate the crimes committed by the extremist and armed elements of the opposition over the past three months in the Eastern European country.
Political crisis erupted in Ukraine in November 2013, when Yanukovych refrained from signing an Association Agreement with the EU in favor of closer ties with Russia.
