How the coup d'état began in Ukraine #15

So, on February 18, violent clashes between security forces and Maidan supporters took place all day in the city center. In fact, if we take into account the burnt armored personnel carriers of the internal troops and the number of deaths from gunshot wounds, we can talk about full-fledged street battles.

 By midnight, the security forces had cleared all the streets adjacent to the Maidan, pushed the protesters directly onto the Maidan, occupying the area around the Independence Stella and destroying the tent camp.

 There were 50 meters left to the stage from which the opposition leaders were speaking.

The House of Trade Unions, where the “Self-Defense Headquarters”, was located for a long time, as well as the “Right Sector” and “Svoboda” were located - burned out completely, right up to the collapse of the ceilings.

 On the night of February 18-19, the opposition, sensing a possible defeat, appealed to President Yanukovych to stop the actions of law enforcement officers and resume negotiations.

And Yanukovych announced that he did not want bloodshed and invited the opposition to return to the negotiating table: “We have already paid too high a price for the ambitions of those who are striving for power. But so that the price does not become even greater, I urge you to come to your senses! We must sit down at the table negotiations and save Ukraine,” said Yanukovych in his address.

 And of course, the security forces received an order to stop.

 By the morning of February 19, the following situation had developed on the Maidan:

 Half of the Maidan territory was burned out. Black soot covered the entire area around the Independence Monument to the monument to the founders of Kiev - Kiy, Shchek, Khoriv and Lybid. Everything around the House of Trade Unions from the European Square was burned, and the house itself was half burned out.

On the Maidan itself there were about 10 thousand protesters and about 5 thousand soldiers of the internal troops and the Berkut special forces. There was a buffer zone of approximately 100 meters between the protesters and the security forces. On the part of the internal troops, a fire hydrant was constantly working, which was aimed at the burning barricades. There were no vigorous actions on the part of the police. The protesters threw stones at the Berkut, to which the special forces responded with stun grenades.

People on the Maidan constantly brought stones to the perimeter, where the line of confrontation with the security forces passed, and a large number of bottles of gasoline were prepared for the night.

 Having fled from the House of Trade Unions, which had been set on fire, Maidan Self-Defense militants occupied the Kiev Conservatory.

 Minor clashes broke out periodically between protesters and security forces, but neither side showed much activity.

In the face of a sharp escalation of the situation, Western politicians increased pressure on official Kiev.

 European Commission President José Manuel Barroso held a telephone conversation with President Viktor Yanukovych in which he expressed alarm over clashes in Ukraine, which have led to the death and injury of a significant number of people.

 The EU Council at the level of foreign ministers has scheduled a meeting on February 20 to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

 It also became known that the foreign ministers of Poland, France and Germany planned a meeting with Viktor Yanukovych on the morning of February 20 in Kiev.

At 17.00 on February 19, the Minister of Health of Ukraine Raisa Bogatyreva said that the number of deaths as a result of riots in Kiev on February 18 increased to 26 people. Of these, 10 were employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

 However, the most dangerous events took place during these days in Western Ukraine.

On the night of February 18-19 and during the next day in Lvov, the buildings of the regional administration were seized, as well as the regional departments of the SBU, the prosecutor's office, the tax administration, the traffic police, the regional and city departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the district branches of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - Galitsky, Frankivsky, Shevchenkovsky and Lychakivsky. All this was accompanied by the destruction of office equipment and documents, including secret ones.

More than 1,170 firearms fell into the hands of Euromaidan supporters (almost a thousand Makarov pistols, more than 170 Kalashnikov assault rifles, sniper rifles and Kalashnikov machine guns, more than 18 thousand rounds of various calibers).

During the storming of the barracks of unit No. 4114 of the Internal Troops of Ukraine in Lvov, Euromaidan supporters seized military ammunition and set the unit building on fire; the fire later spread to an ammunition depot.

In Ivano-Frankovsk, Maidan supporters seized the local SBU headquarters, from where three machine guns, 268 pistols and 90 grenades were stolen. The regional department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was also captured there.

In Lutsk, protesters seized the buildings of the regional state administration and the regional police department. The governor of the Volyn region, Bashkalenko, who happened to be in the police department, was beaten, doused with water and handcuffed to the stage of the local Euromaidan. They demanded a resignation letter from the governor, and members of the public went to his home to bring his family and force him to write a letter of resignation.

In Khmelnitsky, a crowd tried to storm the building of the regional SBU department. The officers opened fire on the protesters, two people were seriously injured. In response to these actions, protesters threw Molotov cocktails at the SBU building, which started a fire and the building was completely burned out.

In Zhitomir and Uzhgorod, protesters stormed and seized the regional state administration buildings.

The situation began to completely get out of control.

Even the former President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk, who previously strongly supported Euromaidan, spoke out in favor of introducing a state of emergency: “It is necessary to introduce a state of emergency in Kiev. The Constitution determines how it is introduced. The President introduces it by decree.”

 “We must now stop the civil war. We must now invite everyone to the negotiating table. There is a slow process of the collapse of the country’s governance going on,” added Kravchuk.

On the evening of February 19, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Alexander Yakimenko, made a statement that the Security Service of Ukraine was launching an anti-terrorist operation in the country. According to him, President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych had already been informed about this decision, which was caused by the aggravated situation in various parts of the country. "Over the past 24 hours," the head of the SBU noted, "massive use of weapons by extremist groups has been recorded. Radical activists gained access to 1.5 thousand firearms and one hundred thousand cartridges."

 The security forces began preparing a special operation to completely clear the Maidan.

Here is what former People's Deputy of Ukraine Oleg Tsarev said about those events:

 “Klyuev (Head of the Presidential Administration) assured me that the order to forcefully stop the unrest would not be canceled, despite the fact that all the phones in the reception area of the head of the presidential administration were ringing off the hook. Representatives of the European Union and the United States called, who already knew about the upcoming dispersal of the Maidan. Zakharchenko gave the command to the security forces to begin the assault at all costs, and asked me to appear on television and appeal to the people on the Maidan to disperse in order to minimize casualties.”

By the way, Andrei Parubiy recalled that it was after Tsarev’s speech on Ukrainian television that day that the Maidan leaders were ready to flee to Western Ukraine. It is likely that it would be there that a hotbed of separatism similar to the Donbass one would have arisen if Yanukovych had managed to finally suppress the Maidan.

 As darkness fell, the protesters again set dozens of tires on fire, and thick smoke once again filled the square.

 On the Maidan itself, another rally began in the evening.

 And here we should note a very important point.

Around midnight, from the Maidan stage, Yuriy Lutsenko made a very serious statement: “We are not the people who are going to shoot at someone, but we will defend ourselves. And already tonight we will have something to defend ourselves with.”

In fact, he made it clear that Maidan activists would be armed with firearms that night.

 At the same time, around midnight on February 19, Viktor Yanukovych held an urgent meeting with opposition leaders. Vitaliy Klitschko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk arrived at his residence.

The meeting was short.

 Its results were announced almost simultaneously by the Presidential Administration through official channels and by Arseniy Yatsenyuk from the Maidan podium:

 “Now a truce has been declared and the negotiation process has begun to stabilize the situation. The main thing is to save human lives. We stopped the assault and clearing,” Yatsenyuk said.

“As a result of the meeting, the parties announced a truce, the start of a negotiation process in order to stop the bloodshed, stabilize the situation in the state for the sake of civil peace,” the press service of the Ukrainian president noted in a statement.

Oleg Tsarev also spoke about that critical night: “Yanukovych eventually canceled his order to storm the Maidan. What happened, what influenced this, I don’t know. The head of the Presidential Administration, Andrei Klyuev, promised me that the order would not be cancelled. The telephone in the reception room was constantly ringing... Then Merkel, Tusk and others called Yanukovych, but they did not connect him with anyone, so that he would not cancel the decision to storm the Maidan. But still, someone probably got through...”

And the former Prime Minister of Ukraine Nikolai Azarov, during the press conference “The fifth anniversary of the Maidan victory: The secret history of the coup d’etat” in 2019, directly indicated that that night Joe Biden (then US Vice President) got through to Yanukovych and forced him with threats to cancel the assault order.

 I don’t know whether this is true or not, and it doesn’t matter.

 History does not tolerate any "if".

Throughout the crisis, Viktor Yanukovych and his team constantly gave up one position after another, made concessions, sometimes showed unacceptable weakness and, conversely, did not show the necessary firmness.

 The leadership of Ukraine was constantly under severe pressure from the West and ultimately faltered at the most critical moment.

 The final clearing of Maidan did not take place. But it was precisely on this night from February 19 to 20 that the authorities had a chance, a real chance, to turn the situation in their favor.

 But that didn't happen.

 And the next day, February 20, a disaster occurred.