Ukraine Protest Leaders Hired Kiev Snipers

Leaked Telephone Conversation: Ukraine Sniper Killings of “Opposition Protesters” Ordered by “Opposition Leaders”, Blamed on Yanukovych

The leaders of EuroMaidan ordered the shooting of their own supporters

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, March 05, 2014

Neo-Nazi Svoboda Party militants

Based on the release of a controversial leaked telephone conversation, we are now in a position to confirm that the Kiev Maidan Independence Square February 20 sniper shootings directed against innocent civilians were ordered by opposition leaders integrated by Neo-Nazi elements.

Acknowledged in a leaked telephone conversation between EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and the Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet, the Maidan opposition rather than president Yanukovych was behind the sniper killings on February 20.

These shooting were directed against both opposition protesters and police.

The telephone file was apparently uploaded by officers of the  Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) loyal to president Viktor Yanukovych indicating that the power structures of the coalition government are fragile, to say the least.

Below is the excerpt of the transcript of the leaked telephone conversation (emphasis added):

Urmas Paet: “There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovich, but it was somebody from the new coalition,”

Catherine Ashton: “I think we do want to investigate. I mean, I didn’t pick that up, that’s interesting. Gosh,”

 According to RT:  The telephone call “took place after Estonia’s Foreign Minister Urmas Paet visited Kiev on February 25 at the peak of clashes between the pro-EU protesters and security forces in the Ukrainian capital. Paet also recalled his conversation with a doctor who treated those shot by snipers in Kiev. She said that both protesters and police were shot at by the same people.”

Urmas Paet “And second, what was quite disturbing, this same Olga [Bogomolets] told as well that all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides,” the Estonian FM stressed.

Catherine Ashton; “Well, yeah…that’s, that’s terrible.”

 Urmas Paet: So that she then also showed me some photos she said that as a medical doctor she can say that it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it’s really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don’t want to investigate what exactly happened,”

 While the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton does not have “blood on her hands”, she has had frequent meetings with Oleh Tyahnybok, leader of the Neo-Nazi Svoboda Party, who in all likelihood was involved in the sniper killings.

“Well, yeah…that’s, that’s terrible.” says Catherine Ashton. But what is the followup? Will the matter be debated by the EU Commission or will it be hushed up?

(Catherine Ashton center with Svoboda Leader  Oleh Tyahnybok, left)

The February 20th Sniper Killings: What Happened? 

Acknowledged by media reports, more than twenty opposition Maidan  protesters were killed by professional snipers on February 20.  This was not a spontaneous event resulting from clashes between protesters and riot police, nor was it marked by an exchange of gunfire between the police and the Neo-Nazi militia.

The sniper killings had the hallmarks of a carefully planned operation. They happened within ‘the space of a few hours”. They were carefully timed. The killings coincided with the meetings of President Viktor Yanukovych with a high level EU delegation.

In a bitter irony, these targeted killings were used as a pretext to topple the government and issue an arrest warrant directed against president Yanukovych on charges of “mass murder” of Maidan protesters.

Now confirmed by the leaked telephone conversation, the purpose of the sniper killings was to provide a pretext for “regime change”.

The Daily Telegraph reported that on Thursday the 20th of February:

“at least 21 protesters were killed in the space of a few hours”…”… ten corpses were laid out on the pavement beneath the awning of a cafe on the northern edge of Independence Square, where thousands of demonstrators are still camped. At least three of the bodies displayed single bullet wounds to the heads.

The report suggests that the deaths were the result of a precise targeted killing operation pointing to the work of professional snipers:

One demonstrator, who gave his name as Andreiy, carried in one body on a green military stretcher. “He died between 90 minutes and two hours ago,” he told a Telegraph reporter. “These are all live rounds. You can see what they do. He and all the others were shot in the head, the neck or the heart. None were shot anywhere else like in the legs.” (Telegraph)

There were reports of snipers on rooftops using automatic weapons, but the identity of the snipers was not known. Invariably the Western media would refer, without evidence, to “government snipers”.

Protesters advanced on police lines in the heart of the Ukrainian capital Thursday, prompting government snipers to shoot back and kill scores of people in the country’s deadliest day since the breakup of the Soviet Union a quarter-century ago. (National Post, Feb 20, 2014)

Most of the Western media reports failed to acknowledge the role of armed Neo-Nazi gunmen and thugs who had integrated the protest movement and who were involved in systematically inciting violence.

The Western media, in chorus, without firm evidence and often contradicting their own reports, casually placed the blame on the Yanukovych government. The objective of this sniper killing operation was to justify regime change

We are dealing with a diabolical agenda: the deaths of protesters in Maidan square triggered by Neo-Nazi elements (supported by the West) were used to break the legitimacy of a duly elected government.

Underlying US foreign policy and CIA intelligence ops, civilian deaths are often triggered deliberately with a view to accusing the enemy and demonizing a foreign head of State or head of government

The Maidan sniper killings are, in this regard reminiscent of what occurred in Syria in mid-March 2011 at the very outset of the insurgency: civilians were killed by rooftop snipers in the border city of Daraa. The resulting casualties –without further investigation– were blamed on the government of Bashar al Assad. It was subsequently confirmed by Israeli and Lebanese press reports, that the  snipers were hired mercenaries.

The concept of killing civilians and placing the blame on the enemy goes back to Operation Northwoods (1962), a secret plan of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba”. ”The Top Secret memorandum (declassified) described U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba, including the assassination of Cubans living in the United States.

Members of the Coalition Government Were Behind the Sniper Killings?

It should be noted that at least two of the main Neo-Nazi Maidan paramilitary leaders who in all probability were directly or indirectly involved in the sniper killings now occupy positions of authority in the new government, overseeing the armed forces, police, and the prosecutor’s office.

Andriy Parubiy co-founder of the Neo-Nazi  Social-National Party of Ukraine (subsequently renamed Svoboda) who now heads the powerful National Security and National Defense Committee (RNBOU) was one of the man leaders of the Maidan riots. He was referred to by the Western media as the “kommandant” of the EuroMaidan movement.

Andriy Parubiy together with party leader Oleh Tyahnybok is a follower of Ukrainian Nazi Stepan Bandera, who collaborated in the mass murderer of Jews and Poles during World War II.

Another key leader of EuroMaidan was Dmytro Yarosh, who currently leads the Right Sector delegation in the parliament. He was appointed deputy Secretary of the RNBOU, which overseas the armed Forces, police,National Security and intelligence.

Yarosh was the leader of the Brown Shirt Neo-Nazi paramilitary during the EuroMaidan riots.

  Dmytro Yarosh speech at Euromaidan (Centre)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/leaked-telephone-conversation-ukraine-sniper-killings-of-opposition-protesters-ordered-by-opposition-leaders-blamed-on-yanukovych/5372013