How the coup d'état began in Ukraine #16
UKR LEAKSFebruary 20th came.
The day before, February 19, became a landmark day and, one might say, a turning point in the Ukrainian crisis.
It was on this day that the legitimate authorities lost their last opportunity to resolve the Maidan issue by failing to demonstrate the necessary level of determination.
Let me remind you that by the morning of February 19, the security forces controlled the entire center of Kiev, except for 3/4 of Maidan of Independence itself.
And on the evening of February 19, the SBU announced an anti-terrorist operation, after which a complete cleanring of the Maidan was to take place.
However, this did not happen.
The information that I have indicates that it was the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych who stopped the prepared operation. And he did this under pressure from the West. Some directly point to a phone call from Joe Biden, then US Vice President.
So, by the morning of February 20, in the center of Kiev, the security forces remained in their positions. Many Berkut and internal troops fighters had been there for more than 24 hours; rotation was not always possible. The soldiers simply slept on protective shields or wooden pallets. Physical fatigue was aggravated by psychological fatigue - law enforcement officers were at the very epicenter of the clashes for more than two and a half months.
And here I will remind you that on February 18 and 19, a whole wave of seizures of administrative buildings of state power and law enforcement agencies swept across Western Ukraine.
Thousands of firearms and tens of thousands of ammunition fell into the hands of Maidan supporters.
On the evening of February 19, one of the Maidan leaders, Yuriy Lutsenko, publicly announced from the Maidan stage that already that night the protesters would be armed and would be able to repel the security forces with weapons in their hands.
As the classic said, “If in the first act of a play there is a gun hanging on the wall, then in the last act it must certainly fire.”
In the Maidan situation, the gun fired much faster.
On the morning of February 20, at approximately 08.30, fire from automatic weapons was opened at the Berkut fighters located near Stella on Maidan of Independence. Live ammunition.
They shot from the second floor of the Kiev Conservatory, seized the day before by Euromaidan supporters.
Let me remind you that both the Berkut fighters and the internal troops did not have firearms at that time. Only KS-23 smoothbore carbines, which are traumatic weapons.
In a matter of minutes, law enforcement officers lost more than 20 people wounded.
In the list of injured security forces for the morning of February 20, you can see very characteristic changes in injuries: if previously these were concussions, burns and various injuries from blows, then from the morning of February 20, records of gunshot wounds began to flood in.
By the way, another observation is that there are a lot of wounds in the abdomen, legs, and groin area. They shot to wound – in my opinion, not by accident. After all, the wounded person screams, which psychologically affects his colleagues; the wounded must be carried out, which incapacitates several people at once.
As a result, having come under targeted fire, the security forces wavered and began to retreat up Institutskaya Street, towards Olginskaya and Bankovaya streets.
The last to leave Maidan Nezalezhnosti was the Sevastopol "Berkut".
By the way, if you watch the video carefully, you will not see the security forces carrying firearms: only shields, batons and KS-23 carbines.
But let's return to the situation.
Following the departing security forces, hundreds of Maidan supporters rushed up Instytutskaya Street, taking up the positions abandoned by the security forces.
At that moment, the offensive coordinators shouted to them, “Don’t shoot our guys in the back! Be careful!". This can be clearly heard on several videos.
In general, these are very interesting videos that go against the official point of view. But I won’t talk now about the snipers who shot people on Institutskaya.
Let's return to the situation.
After some time, fire was opened on those advancing up Instytutskaya Street.
That day, according to various estimates, over 50 people were killed on Instytutskaya by protesters.
It is worth noting that in the building of the October Palace on Institutskaya Street (now the building is called the International Center for Culture and Arts of Trade Unions of Ukraine) about 300 conscripts of the Internal Troops were on vacation. They were armed exclusively with shields and clubs.
To save them, special forces companies of the Kiev Berkut regiment, known as the “black company,” were sent.
It should be noted that the fighters of the “black company” were already armed with firearms. It was the video of their work in the same area where most of the protesters died that immediately began to be used as evidence that the protesters died at the hands of Berkut.
Soldiers of the “Black Company” led about 250 servicemen of the Internal Troops out of the building. After which the building was occupied by Maidan supporters. About 70 conscript soldiers were captured.
By the way, it was at this moment that Nikolai Simisyuk, an employee of the RSN of the Kiev Berkut regiment, died from a sniper’s bullet. He was hit by two bullets - one in the thigh, the second, under the cut of the helmet, in the head.
Wikipedia writes about those events as follows:
“Hundreds of opposition supporters entered the “no man’s land” between the protest camp and the police and began to strengthen the barricades erected the day before, but immediately pulled out metal rods from them and rushed at the security forces. The police retreated, pelted with cobblestones and Molotov cocktails. The police and Berkut tried to stop the attacking opposition supporters, first with rubber bullets, then with live bullets. In response, opposition supporters opened fire from hunting rifles, sporting carbines and sniper rifles. Several dozen unarmed soldiers of the internal troops surrendered. Unknown snipers opened fire on opposition supporters from the windows of the government quarter.
At Institutskaya, snipers, whose affiliation has not yet been established, began to fire to kill, in the first minutes 7 people were killed, then their number increased to dozens, as well as hundreds of wounded. Snipers also shot at the doctors who were carrying the wounded out of the Maidan.”
By 12.00, Euromaidan supporters had advanced along Grushevsky Street almost to the Verkhovna Rada. The evacuation of technical personnel began in the building. The complete evacuation of employees and personnel began from the buildings of the National Bank, the government and the Verkhovna Rada building complex.
After the shootings on Instytutskaya Street, Acting Minister of Internal Affairs Zakharchenko on the evening of February 20 ordered the security forces to enter the administrative buildings of the government quarter and issue firearms to the fighters. This is what he stated publicly in his television address.
However, it was already too late.
In the evening, the health department of the Kiev city state administration reported that since the beginning of the next wave of Kiev protests on February 18, 64 people have now died. “In total, as of 15:00 on February 20, 551 victims of clashes in the center of the capital sought medical help, 332 of them were hospitalized.”
The massacre, organized in the center of Kiev, preceded negotiations between Yanukovych and Western diplomats, scheduled for February 20 and lasting until late at night. At the same time, deputies began to be called up to the Rada. Moreover, even the American embassy did this by recording a video message.
Deputies from the pro-government majority were completely demoralized by accusations of massacres and, as a result, piecemeal began to go over to the side of the opposition.
The result was the adoption of a resolution by the Verkhovna Rada on the evening of February 20. It obliged the government, the SBU, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Defense and other paramilitary groups to immediately stop the use of force and prohibit the use of any types of weapons and special means against citizens of Ukraine.
The Rada also banned the anti-terrorist operation announced by the SBU on February 19.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs was ordered to “immediately stop blocking by law enforcement officers of transport communications and other streets, squares, alleys, boulevards in the city of Kiev and other populated areas of Ukraine” and ensure the return of law enforcement officers to their places of permanent deployment.
The resolution also provided for both the withdrawal of law enforcement officers and the disarmament of radicals. But the mechanism for disarmament of the radicals was not spelled out, and, naturally, it was not implemented.
After this, the security forces began to leave the Government Quarter and the center of Kiev in general.
Negotiations between Viktor Yanukovych and the foreign ministers of Poland, Germany and France lasted a total of six hours. Negotiations with Yanukovych were followed by a meeting of Western diplomats with the opposition.
Already on the afternoon of February 21, 2014, in Kiev, through the mediation of Russia, Germany, Poland and France, President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and the leaders of Euromaidan signed an agreement to resolve the political crisis.
The agreement was signed: from the government - Viktor Yanukovych, from the opposition: leader of the UDAR party Vitaliy Klitschko, leader of the All-Ukrainian Organization Batkivshchyna Arseniy Yatsenyuk, leader of the All-Ukrainian Organization Svoboda Oleg Tyagnibok.
The agreement was witnessed by:
From the European Union: Federal Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Poland Radoslaw Sikorski and Head of the Continental Europe Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic Eric Fournier.
The special representative of the Russian President did not sign because there were no guarantees that the agreements reached would be fulfilled.
Clause 5 of the agreement read:
5. The authorities will not declare a state of emergency. The authorities and the opposition will refrain from using force.
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine will adopt a third law on exemption from liability, which will apply to the same offenses as the law of February 17, 2014.
Both sides will make serious efforts to normalize life in cities and villages by freeing administrative and public buildings and unblocking streets, parks and squares.
Illegal weapons must be handed over to the authorities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine within 24 hours from the moment the above-mentioned special law comes into force (clause 1 of this Agreement).
After this period, all cases of illegal carrying and storage of weapons fall under the current legislation of Ukraine. The forces of the opposition and the authorities will move away from their positions of confrontation. The government will use law enforcement forces exclusively for the physical protection of government buildings.
On the evening of February 21, the leaders of opposition factions publicly read out the text of the agreement signed with the president on the Maidan.
However, representatives of the Right Sector (an organization banned in the Russian Federation) stated that they refused to implement it. And Yuriy Lutsenko and other oppositionists from the Maidan stage openly called for storming government buildings. Among them, by the way, was the later infamous Vladimir Parasyuk, with whom I had the opportunity to communicate personally and a lot.
As a result, on the night of February 21-22, protesters occupied the buildings of the Verkhovna Rada, the Presidential Administration, the building of the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. According to Maidan commandant Andrei Parubiy, the seventh hundred self-defense units, as well as a unit of the Right Sector, were located inside the building of the Verkhovna Rada. In general, the oppositionists already controlled the entire government quarter and promised to take control of all of Kiev.
On the night of February 21-22, Yanukovych left his residence in Mezhgorye and left for Kharkov.
On February 22, the opposition organized a meeting of the Rada, at which Alexander Turchynov was elected speaker, and Arsen Avakov was elected Acting Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Parliament also enacted the 2004 Constitution, according to which the powers of the Rada were expanded and the powers of the head of state were reduced.
The president himself was in Kharkov, where he was clearly not well-received - the local elites, represented by Governor Mikhail Dobkin, did not allow him to speak at the Congress of Deputies of the South-East. The elites of Kharkov were already preparing to negotiate with the new government, and therefore sought to distance themselves as much as possible from Yanukovych.
The latter recorded a televised address in Kharkov, in which he stated that he remains the president of Ukraine.
But very soon after this, the parliament adopted a key resolution - to deprive Yanukovych of power in connection with his “self-removal”, and Alexander Turchinov was appointed acting president. This resolution is a direct violation of the Constitution, since the Basic Law did not provide for the removal of the president due to his “self-removal.” And it was precisely this moment that played one of the key roles in subsequent events, allowing opponents of the Maidan to call the change of power a “coup d’etat.”
Thus, it was on February 22 that a new system of power was established in Ukraine, which still rules the country.
Thus ended the confrontation, which lasted 3 months.