Editor's Note: The following Kyiv Post article was originally published on Feb. 28, 2014 at 12:42 a.m.
The top law enforcement official for ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who is now a fugitive fleeing mass murder charges, had planned an even greater bloodbath to suppress the EuroMaidan anti-government protests, according to Batkivshchyna Party lawmaker Hennadii Moskal, who said he has documents to prove his allegations.
Had the plans been fully executed for what was code named operation Boomerang and Operation Wave, more lives would have been lost than the nearly 100 people who died during clashes between protesters and police since the start of EuroMaidan on Nov. 21. Most of the deaths came on Feb. 20 when sniper fire shot from behind police lines or riot-control police killed many protesters.
According to Moskal, ex-Interior Minister Valeriy Zakharchenko was aware of the operations and gave orders to shoot at protesters.
On Feb. 20, Zakharchenko said that police were authorized to use firearms to defend themselves. He is now a wanted man, along with other top officials, including Yanukovych, who may have escaped to Russia.
Released this week, Moskal insists the materials are just a small portion of the plan’s scope. They suggest that a joint-task force had been created at an operational headquarters that consisted of the Security Services of Ukraine (SBU), Interior Ministry and military personnel. Members of the Foreign Ministry, Kyiv city government, secret service, penitentiary service, railway service, and transport ministry also were part of the operational headquarters.
The alleged plan called for the deployment of 22,000 police officers, including 2,000 Berkut riot police, and 224 SBU anti-terrorist Alpha Group officers, including seven snipers. In addition, 17 SBU agent-provocateurs were supposed to infiltrate the protester encampment on Independence Square, and four groups of two to three SBU officers were to be engaged in the center of Kyiv to attack residents, damage property and engage in other subversive activities designed to undermine the protest movement.
SBU spokesperson Lada Safranova wasn’t available for comment. Numerous calls placed with the SBU’s press service number went unanswered.
Moskal also said, according to the documents, that the former first deputy head of the general staff of the Russian Armed Forces’ Main Intelligence Directorate played a major role in planning the operations. He was stationed in a Ukraina Hotel room for which the SBU allegedly paid.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said his office won’t comment on the matter.
Russian advice was needed, Moskal said, because former Security Services head Oleksandr Yakymenko and Zakharchenko were not qualified to plan an anti-terrorist operation. Yakymenko was a trained pilot and Zakharchenko had an economic crimes background.
Operations Boomerang and Wave
In addition to more than 22,000 law enforcement personnel, operations Boomerang and Wave foresaw the use of armored vehicles, various types of grenades, and auxiliary units such as bomb squads, emergency services, communication personnel and traffic police.
Many of the operations’ plans coincide with the actual events that took place during the police raid of Feb. 18-19.
The raid began at 8 p.m. on Feb. 18 and left 26 people dead, including 10 police officers and more than 1,000 injured. At least 60 people died on Feb. 20, mostly from deadly sniper fire. Three police officers died on the same day. In all, nearly 100 people (90 according to EuroMaidan SOS, 82 according to the Health Ministry) have been killed in EuroMaidan protests since January.
At least some of the murderous plan outlined in the documents mirrors what happened.
For example, operatives used the roof of an adjacent building to access the House of Trade Unions, EuroMaidan’s then-headquarters on Kyiv’s Independence Square. Police attacked the House of Trade Unions sometime after midnight on Feb. 19. During the chaos, the building caught fire and burned throughout the night and into the morning.
The new perimeters that security and police forces set up after their raid resemble one of the proposed plan’s objectives.
The plan called for electricity to be cut off as it was on Feb. 18. KyivEnergo, the electricity utility owned by billionare Rinat Akhmetov – a major backer of Yanukovych – would have been responsible for electricity to the building.
Channel 5 – a TV channel that was critical of the authorities – was actually cut off as per the plan.
Also, plans called for the metro entrances and exits of Maidan Nezalezhnosti and Khreshchatyk to be shut, as they were.
Road access to the center was to be tightly controlled or blocked, as it was on Feb. 18-20, with traffic police armed with Kalashnikov rifles.
Also, an armored vehicle was used to storm the barricade as per the police plan, but protesters set the vehicle ablaze with numerous Molotov cocktails.
Another event that adds legitimacy to Moskal’s claims and the documents’ authenticity is the use of snipers. In the operations’ plans, seven Security Service of Ukraine Alpha Group snipers were to be used and stationed atop four buildings on Khreshchatyk.
On Feb. 20, sniper fire killed dozens of protesters from positions along Institutska Street that runs perpendicular to Khreshchatyk Street. The most senior sniper listed was Lieutenant-Colonel A. M. Bychkivsky whose code name listed is “Myron.”
Bychkivsky denied firing on protesters in an interview he gave to TVi.
SBU black operations
Part of the anti-terrorist plan was to infiltrate the EuroMaidan encampment with 17 recruited SBU agents from within the ranks of political parties and self-organized groups there. The three major oppositional parties at the time, Svoboda, UDAR and Batkivshchyna, as well as the Afghan and Cossack groups were to be penetrated from within to sow discontent, demoralization and cause infighting.
Svoboda spokesperson Yuri Syrotiuk said the party won’t comment until they receive confirmation from the SBU that such a plan existed “because it is illegal to recruit political party members.” UDAR wouldn’t comment over the phone and didn’t immediately respond to an e-mailed inquiry. Batkivshchyna Party was unavailable for comment.
“If the new leadership of the SBU won’t reveal their informers, then I will have the right to reveal the identities of the agents as well as other information on them,” said Moskal. “The SBU has the right to have agents for counter-intelligence, but not for combating the opposition or dissent.”
Other alleged covert and subversive activity involved the use of four SBU groups were supposed to damage 27 cars that supplied EuroMaidan with food, firewood and clothing.
There were more than 20 cases of vehicle arsons reported in January-February related to EuroMaidan activists, including 15 overnight on Feb. 20.
Also, the SBU groups were to “imitate attacks and thefts of area residents” to artificially increase the number of police reports and complaints.
On Jan. 8, the day after Orthodox Christmas, the Interior Ministry issued a news release stating that it received 70 complaints on the illegal activity of EuroMaidan protesters that included bodily harm, hooliganism, and theft of personal items.
Kyiv Post editor Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected]. Kyiv Post editor Christopher J. Miller contributed to this report.
