Investigators and lawyers warn that investigations into the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan Revolution, including the murder of more than 100 protesters, may collapse.
A recent restructuring of the EuroMaidan investigation units sidelined investigators and prosecutors trusted by civil society, while officials accused of blocking EuroMaidan cases were put in charge of the investigations. Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
The EuroMaidan investigations were actively sabotaged under former President Petro Poroshenko, according to Sergii Gorbatuk, who heads the unit that investigates EuroMaidan cases. But now their future hangs in the balance as the position of newly-elected President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team on them is unclear.
Zelensky’s position
Serhiy Kiz, whom Gorbatiuk accused of blocking EuroMaidan cases, was promoted to deputy prosecutor general in July.
Ukrainian journalists from the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s investigative project Schemes reported, citing their sources, that Kiz was promoted due to backing from Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan. Vitaly Tytych, a lawyer for EuroMaidan protesters, also told the Kyiv Post that Kiz was a Bohdan protégé.
Zelensky’s press office, Bohdan, and Kiz did not respond to requests for comment.
Concerns remain about Zelensky’s team’s intentions regarding cases into the revolution that ousted ex-President Viktor Yanukovych because Bohdan was a top official under Yanukovych.
Bohdan also used to be an assistant to Yanukovych’s Deputy Chief of Staff Andriy Portnov, whom Bohdan calls his friend. Zelensky’s Deputy Chief of Staff Rouslan Riaboshapka, the most likely candidate for prosecutor general under Zelensky, is a long-time acquaintance of Bohdan, with whom they worked in the government of Yanukovych.
Riaboshapka, who did not respond to a request for comment, told Channel 24 on Aug. 6 that he needed to examine the EuroMaidan cases to understand their prospects.
He said, however, that “many of the old cases may be “lost.”
“Sometimes we’ve got to be honest and say the truth: (in some cases) we can’t achieve the results expected by society, and we shouldn’t keep lying and make society believe in some hopes,” Riaboshapka added.
November deadline
The Prosecutor General’s Office is set to lose its investigative functions in November and will be able only to prosecute, not investigate, EuroMaidan cases. The investigations will be transferred to the State Investigation Bureau.
Gorbatuk, head of the EuroMaidan investigation unit at the Prosecutor General’s Office, and Oleksiy Donsky, former head of the EuroMaidan prosecution unit, have proposed merging their units into a single prosecution department that will oversee State Investigation Bureau investigators working on EuroMaidan cases. Gorbatuk, Donsky or some other experienced and respectable officials involved in EuroMaidan cases were expected to head the new department.
In June, Lutsenko set up a new EuroMaidan cases department as demanded by Gorbatuk and Donsky. However, several days later, he liquidated the department. He never explained why.
Donsky and Gorbatuk say that Lutsenko’s deputies Serhiy Kiz and Anzhela Stryzhevska were the ones who blocked the department’s creation. They did not respond to requests for comment.
Dubious restructuring
In early August, Donsky’s prosecution unit was replaced with a new unit headed by Viktor Mysyak, a former deputy of Kiz, Donsky and Gorbatuk told the Kyiv Post.
The new unit will report directly to Kiz. Gorbatuk and Donsky say this will allow Lutsenko and Kiz to influence and block EuroMaidan investigations.
All of Donsky’s prosecutors and seven of Gorbatuk’s 45 investigators were transferred to the new department. Gorbatuk’s unit itself will be liquidated by November, when its investigative functions are set to expire.
Donsky was effectively fired as the head of the prosecution unit. He said that he believed the restructuring to be an illegal takeover of the prosecution unit.
Donsky also said that he was ready to be a rank-and-file prosecutor given that the unit is supervised by experienced and trustworthy prosecutors who had investigated EuroMaidan cases and achieved results.
“We don’t understand why they’re appointing unmotivated people who don’t know these cases (to be in charge of them),” Donsky said. “We interpret this as blatant sabotage…. Kiz needs loyal people who will do his bidding.”
Donsky and Gorbatuk also criticized Lutsenko and Kiz for liquidating the criminal support and research unit of Gorbatuk’s department. They argue that it will be extremely difficult to investigate cases without this unit.
The criminal support and research unit comprised economists, accountants, telephone specialists, psychologists and polygraph specialists. It also ran a database of weapons and material evidence.
EuroMaidan families
The families of slain EuroMaidan protesters said in a statement on Aug. 15 that the restructuring was aimed at getting rid of independent prosecutors and investigators and would help suspects escape responsibility.
“We believe this step is an attempt to destroy EuroMaidan investigations and abandon the cases that are already in court and the prosecutor general’s intentional refusal to bring them to convictions,” they said.
The families also said that the restructuring would “destroy the united coordination center for investigations and the unified vision and strategy” and would “suspend, delay or even destroy the investigations.”
The families of slain protesters asked Zelensky to meet them and prevent the sabotage of the cases. Zelensky has not reacted so far.
Lutsenko argued in an Aug. 19 interview with the censor.net news site that he had done his best to help the EuroMaidan investigation units.
He accused Gorbatuk of sabotaging EuroMaidan cases.
Lutsenko said that he had wanted to fire Gorbatuk but had not done so due to support for Gorbatuk by the families of slain EuroMaidan protesters.
Current sabotage
Donsky and Gorbatuk also accused Kiz and Mysyak of blocking EuroMaidan cases. They did not respond to requests for comment.
They said that, before Kiz got involved in EuroMaidan investigations in 2018, their supervisors had agreed to cooperate with them and solve problems related to EuroMaidan cases. Since Kiz took over, he has only created obstacles for EuroMaidan investigations, they argued.
Specifically, Kiz has replaced the prosecutor in the case into violations during the adoption of the so-called “dictatorship laws” of Jan. 16, 2014 with himself, Donsky and Gorbatuk said. The case into the laws, which greatly cracked down on civil liberties during the EuroMaidan Revolution, involves ex-Verkhovna Rada Deputy Speaker Igor Kaletnik among other suspects.
Donsky said he believed the decision to be unlawful because it was not based on any of the grounds stipulated by the law.
“They want to close the Kaletnik case because huge money is involved,” Gorbatuk said. “I won’t be surprised if Kaletnik re-appears in Ukraine and returns to big politics.”
Kiz has also refused to punish prosecutor Mykola Nikolayev, who was working at Donsky’s unit and was refusing to work, Donsky said. Donsky added that Kiz had told him not to “load Nikolayev with work.”
Donsky also said that the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors had appointed to his unit unmotivated prosecutors had no intention of working and were soon transferred to other units. Donsky said Kiz had told him some of them were “his people.”
Donsky and Gorbatuk also said that the leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office was refusing to sign a dozen notices of suspicion prepared by their units, including those for judges of the Constitutional Court, the Kyiv Commercial Court, the Kyiv Commercial Court of Appeal and district courts.
Previous sabotage
Donsky and Gorbatuk argued that the Lutsenko period was the worst for EuroMaidan cases, compared even with Lutsenko’s predecessor Viktor Shokin.
In 2016 to 2017, Lutsenko also took away from Gorbatuk’s department corruption cases against Yanukovych and his top allies. Lutsenko said the cases had been taken from the unit due to “inefficiency”, while Gorbatuk said that they were taken away unlawfully without legal grounds and had stalled since then.
In 2018 Lutsenko also transferred prosecutors from Gorbatuk’s unit to a department headed by Kiz.
Gorbatuk argued then that the splitting of his department was due to Lutsenko’s dissatisfaction with efforts by Gorbatuk and Donsky to prevent political and corrupt bargains with associates of Yanukovych. The Prosecutor General’s Office denied the accusations.
Statistics
Gorbatuk’s unit said on Aug. 16 that 290 suspects, including 34 former top officials, had been charged in cases into crimes against EuroMaidan protesters. The cases against 162 suspects have been sent to trial, and 19 of them have been convicted, the department said.
Five ex-police officers are currently on trial for murdering EuroMaidan demonstrators, and 21 police officers charged with murder have fled to Russia.
Gorbatuk said earlier that in absentia cases against the fugitive police officers, Yanukovych and his top allies could not have been sent to trial because Ukraine had passed temporary legislation on in absentia cases that contradicts international law.
However, currently this legislation has lapsed, and he said some of these cases could be sent to trial soon.
