'I shot them in the head.' Confessions of Maidan killer

"I shot them in the back of the head, it's true." Euromaidan activist Ivan Bubenchik, a resident of Lvov, gave an interview to Bird in Flight publication, in which he told of how he was killing Berkut riot police officers during mass riots in Ukraine.

Bubenchik said that by 20 February, after the blaze in the House of Trade Unions on Independence Square, the protesters had moved to the Conservatory, from where they were shooting at the riot police from hunting rifles. He asked the protesters not to do it, because the riot police started throwing Molotov cocktails back. In the morning of February 20, someone brought a Kalashnikov and 75 rounds of ammunition.

"I was shooting from the window behind columns on the third storey - the farthest window from Maidan. From tat window, I could very clearly see the riot police with their shields near the stela ... I would choose the ones in charge. I could not hear them, but I could see their gestures. The distance was not that large, so it took only two shots for two commanders. They say I shot them in the head, and it's true. I could see their backs, and I had no time to wait for them to turn. This is how God made it happen and this is how it was done," Ivan Bubenchik said in the interview.

According to him, he learned to shoot while serving in the Soviet army and was trained at the military intelligence school.

The head of the Department for Special Investigations at the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Sergey Gorbatyuk, told the Ukrainian BBC service that Bubenchik previously appeared in Maidan murder cases, but it was impossible to charge him because of the decision of the Verkhovna Rada. He also said that Bubenchik was summoned for questioning at the department, but did not show up.

"In accordance with the decision of the Verkhovna Rada, all those involved in crimes against law enforcement officers (at the time of Maidan riots - Ed.), shall be pardoned and cases against them shall be closed. They shall not be detained, nor shall they be informed of being suspects," Gorbatyuk said.

In December 2013, following the suspension of the signing of the Association Agreement with the EU, European integration supporters with the active support of Ukrainian nationalists occupied the main square of the Ukrainian capital - Maidan Nezalezhnosti. The square subsequently became the epicenter of violent clashes between opposition activists and law enforcers.

The Prosecutor General of Ukraine Victor Shokin said on February 8 that the investigation into the killings during Maidan riots in February 2014 was nearing completion. Shokin said in an interview with Inter TV channel that former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was considered the main organizer of the riots. "The case is almost finished. It is clear that he was running the operations through his associates. Yanukovych was behind all those murders and everything else on Maidan," Shokin said.

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Author`s name Dmitry Sudakov
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