The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

00:00:00.000 Hello, and welcome to a new episode of RealPolitik. I am your host, Firas Mardad. I am

00:00:06.240 joined today by Canadian-Ukrainian professor Ivan Kachnowski. I hope I didn't butcher his name too

00:00:13.280 badly. Ivan is a professor of political science in Canada. He's quite the expert on the Russia-Ukraine

00:00:20.400 issue. I know you've been very interested in this, so I wanted to get someone of his stature

00:00:26.240 to help us understand the conflict in context and help us understand where we are in the war right

00:00:32.000 now. Ivan, thank you very much for joining me. Thank you for the invitation. My pleasure. My

00:00:38.880 pleasure. You recently put out a book arguing that the narrative around the Euromaidan protest

00:00:47.520 was very misleading and inaccurate. To remind our audience, the Euromaidan protest in 2014

00:00:55.520 kicked off over the issue of whether Ukraine was going to side with Russia or side with the

00:01:00.800 European Union. The objective was really to force the Ukrainian government of the time to side with

00:01:08.560 the EU, and this is why they added the appellate euro to the Maidan protest. There was a significant

00:01:15.520 amount of violence there. Something like 80 to 100 people were killed by gunfire, and it's not fully

00:01:24.160 clear who was responsible for the killing. Ivan, you've done some research into this, and you looked a

00:01:30.640 lot into the different angles from where people were killed and things of that nature. Tell us a little bit

00:01:37.520 what you found, and then I'm going to ask you, how were your findings received?

00:01:43.040 Yes, I did research about the Maidan massacre in Ukraine since it was live, since I watched it live

00:01:51.360 on February 20, 2014, since I specialize in researching conflicts and political violence in Ukraine. I did

00:02:00.400 this for a very long time, so I was looking into this mass murder checking place live on television. I was

00:02:07.600 watching this from my home in Canada, looking into live streams from the internet. And since then,

00:02:18.080 for more than 11 years, I did research by looking into all publicly available evidence, all the videos,

00:02:25.440 all audio recordings, all photos from this massacre, all witness testimonies. I examined all Maidan massacre

00:02:35.200 trial broadcasts which were made public on YouTube, which were also shown live. So I looked into what kind

00:02:44.320 of evidence government investigation produced and what was reported by eyewitnesses, by Maidan activists who were

00:02:54.080 wounded and testified for the Ukrainian trial, which was taken place since 2015. So I checked all this evidence,

00:03:06.320 and based on my research, I can say there is no doubt that this massacre was conducted not by the government

00:03:13.760 forces. This massacre was conducted by elements of the Maidan opposition, specifically to falsely blame the

00:03:21.920 government forces of Viktor Yanukovych and his security and police forces in order to overthrow him and to

00:03:30.560 take power in Ukraine. And they were successful in this crime, in this mass murder, because they 0.99

00:03:37.920 overthrew Yanukovych. All media basically reported that he was the one who was responsible for this massacre, and

00:03:45.200 he was blamed for this massacre. He had to flee Ukraine because of his power basically vanished after

00:03:54.720 his security forces withdrew from the area of downtown Kyiv as a result of agreement after this massacre. And he

00:04:03.280 also was subject to assassination attempts shortly after the massacre. Again, this is almost never reported

00:04:10.480 by the media in the West. And so I published since then, I published four peer-reviewed journal articles,

00:04:16.720 and I published my book, open access book, which means free book, freely available for everyone who

00:04:23.200 interested to get information about my research and about this important massacre. And since the book is

00:04:30.480 available, I provided hyperlinks, so anybody can check this. It is free for everyone to read and download.

00:04:40.640 Well, thank you for that. What specific evidence did you find? So you said that you looked at the

00:04:45.680 evidence and you looked at the court processes in Ukraine. Tell me what you found in that evidence,

00:04:52.080 and tell me about some of the testimony that you cited in your work.

00:04:56.720 Yes, I found videos of this massacre which are synchronized according to the start of the massacre

00:05:06.080 when you have first police officers who were killed from locations which were controlled by the Maidan

00:05:12.240 opposition. So there are videos which show this, how this took place. In the morning of February 20th,

00:05:19.680 I found that then police forces retreated and fled basically from Maidan Square in Kyiv because of this

00:05:29.600 murder and killing and wounding of many police officers on Maidan. And after this, when they fled,

00:05:38.720 Maidan activists moved after them and they were shot as well by snipers located in buildings which were

00:05:45.680 controlled by Maidan opposition, such as Hotel Ukraine and other buildings which were nearby,

00:05:51.840 which were controlled by the elements of the Maidan opposition.

00:05:56.400 How do you know that they were controlled by elements of the Maidan opposition?

00:06:00.480 Because, again, I look very carefully. So there are videos which show, including videos by BBC,

00:06:06.560 which are included in my video appendixes, which are available online on YouTube. So anybody can watch them.

00:06:12.560 They are synchronized. And you see also videos of BBC, which show that Hotel Ukraine entrance was

00:06:19.360 controlled by actually Maidan opposition, specifically by members of the far-right Svoboda party.

00:06:27.360 They were standing in front of an entrance to the Hotel Ukraine, to elevators. And you see inside of this

00:06:34.720 hotel, which I actually lived, in which I stayed many, many times myself. In this hotel, you see that they

00:06:43.520 are Maidan activists in the lobby of this hotel. You see also security guards in front of an entrance to

00:06:52.080 elevators. And you can see also that there were no other, nobody else was there because I also cited

00:07:00.880 testimonies of a leader of the Maidan group, which guarded this hotel. And he said that this hotel

00:07:08.000 was controlled by the Maidan opposition. And specifically, he was in charge of guarding this

00:07:12.880 hotel even before the massacre and during the massacre and after the massacre. And he was filmed,

00:07:19.040 including by BBC, in this hotel, actually, during the massacre.

00:07:22.480 By this point, the hotel lobby was being used as a makeshift hospital. It was chaos.

00:07:29.360 No one controlled access. Anyone could have got in.

00:07:37.760 Later that night, Andri Paroubi's Maidan security men were roaming the upper floors of the hotel,

00:07:44.000 knocking on doors, including our own, looking for a sniper.

00:07:47.680 There's no question that government security forces did have snipers positioned on tall buildings

00:08:10.480 overlooking Maidan and the surrounding area. But their intercepted radio communications suggest

00:08:16.800 confusion at the very least, or possibly, that they were not alone.

00:08:21.200 In addition to this, there was a statement, public statement by opposition,

00:08:34.160 far-right suborda leaders, at the end of January, that they took control and guard of this hotel

00:08:40.960 themselves. And this is just, this is what is clear. And there are also reports by journalists,

00:08:47.920 by eyewitnesses, who were at the hotel and there were no other, nobody else, no government forces.

00:08:55.120 And this is also stated that this hotel was controlled by Maidan opposition in the verdict,

00:09:01.120 which was issued by the Ukrainian court after the Maidan massacre trial took place. So this is now

00:09:07.360 official recognition by the Maidan massacre trial verdict that this hotel was controlled by the Maidan

00:09:14.480 opposition opposition, and in particular by this far-right link party. And there are also videos which I found

00:09:22.160 that there were groups of armed Maidan activists in this hotel, during the massacre which took place.

00:09:27.840 And they were located in the same, on the same floors of the Hotel Lucina, in the same locations from which

00:09:34.000 snipers shot at the Maidan activists from this hotel, including, including the ones who shot at the BBC

00:09:43.760 television crew. And this famous video of BBC, which shows that the sniper was shooting at the

00:09:50.400 direction of BBC journalists and Maidan activists would point their hands to this hotel and would

00:09:57.840 shoot sniper and they would run away. And this was filmed by BBC television. Earlier that morning,

00:10:04.400 we too had seen someone firing out of the upper floors of the Hotel Ukraine.

00:10:08.400 Uh, what is that? What? That window? Yeah. Facing directly to us? Yeah.

00:10:16.080 F**k. Okay, get the f**k out of here. 1.00

00:10:20.080 F**k. That is coming straight out of that window. 1.00

00:10:34.480 Which one? Up there. Okay. Yeah. Our hotel. That window. 1.00

00:10:39.440 Um, okay. One, two, three, four. Fifth row from the left. Second from the top. One that was open.

00:10:50.080 Uh, journalist, uh, television, uh, crew, and it was published, uh, after the Maidan massacre online,

00:10:57.840 this video is available. And so now, uh, the, uh, official, uh, verdict of Ukrainian court stated that

00:11:05.600 this, uh, shooting was done by Maidan activists from the Hotel Ocarina, which was controlled by

00:11:11.200 Maidan opposition. So this is now stated officially and supported what I found in my own research,

00:11:16.480 uh, which is now published as a book and publishes for PRU journal articles.

00:11:23.120 And in addition to this, in addition to videos, there are videos of snipers, uh, again, with Maidan

00:11:28.320 activists inside of this hotel, there are videos of shooting from this hotel by snipers, eyewitness

00:11:34.720 testimonies. So I found about 100 eyewitness testimonies during the massacre themselves itself,

00:11:40.720 in which people would point to Hotel Ocarina and other locations, like music conservatory and other

00:11:47.120 locations, which were controlled by Maidan opposition and said that there were snipers in these locations.

00:11:53.520 But the conservatory building several hundred meters away was firmly in the hands of the protesters.

00:12:00.000 Just after eight o'clock that morning, a news photographer had managed to get into the building

00:12:04.560 with his camera. When I come inside, uh, I was saw the guys, uh, one come after me, uh, was just a

00:12:14.480 hunter gun. Hunting rifle. Hunting rifle. And, uh, I, I saw the guy with the Kalashnikov. And, uh, after that,

00:12:22.720 uh, I come outside and, uh, saw the other guys who was also with the guns. Some of them lying on the floor,

00:12:31.600 some of them hiding after, uh, behind the columns on the second floor. And, uh, uh, after that,

00:12:38.400 the guys who saw me and said, go out, go out. On the morning of the 20th, there were persistent

00:12:44.480 reports of gunfire coming from the conservatory building. Now, for the first time, one of those

00:12:50.000 gunmen has spoken on camera. He was part of the protest movement, he said, and agreed to talk to us

00:12:56.000 on condition that we disguise his identity. We will call him Sergei. It was the Maidan security

00:13:03.200 people who gathered us and asked, if it comes to it, who here can shoot? And I said, I can shoot. 0.70

00:13:09.360 So they said, okay, if there's no other way out, then you will do this work.

00:13:14.800 That was on the 19th. Earlier that day, Sergei had been told to meet a man on the edge of the protest

00:13:20.720 camp who appeared carrying a box. He had brought a 12 caliber shotgun, lots of ammunition and a Saiga.

00:13:30.480 That's a rifle that fires high velocity rounds similar to a standard Kalashnikov.

00:13:36.640 I took that weapon off him. It had a sight attached. I know how to use this gun because I served in the

00:13:42.400 army. There are also videos by Belgian television video, which was, um, uh, the most famous video

00:13:50.560 of the Maidan massacre. And this video was shown by all television networks around the world, but they

00:13:57.120 show only about one minute of this video in which you see Maidan activists being shot and killed, uh, on,

00:14:04.800 and this was, uh, again, a very famous video shown around the world to hundreds of millions of people.

00:14:11.440 But actually what they did not show, this was what happened before this. And, and before this,

00:14:17.040 I got this entire video from this Belgian journalist because this video was made public at the Maidan

00:14:22.400 massacre trial in Ukraine, but again, never reported by any media,

00:14:27.840 because this video shows that this Maidan activists before they were shot and killed and massacred in

00:14:33.760 this area were led to this exact spot by two other Maidan activists who were, again, leading them and

00:14:41.840 calling them to go there for no apparent reason. And these activists who led them, again, were not killed

00:14:48.640 themselves. So this is, again, and, and when this Maidan activists would go to the area before they would

00:14:55.680 be shot, there is also video which shows that they, um, that there was a gunshot from the direction from the

00:15:01.840 back, from the Hotel Lucina into their direction, which hit a tree behind them. And they would turn to this

00:15:08.080 hotel and would shoot, uh, do not shoot at us. Basically, they were shooting at snipers, not to

00:15:13.360 shoot at them. So this is, again, this was, this was never reported by the media. This was never reported

00:15:20.560 by and denied by even, uh, official government investigation. Even so, it's very clear that this,

00:15:26.560 this, uh, again, was shooting from the back, from the Hotel Lucina direction. And in addition to this,

00:15:31.840 I found also, like, testimonies, eyewitness testimonies of several hundred witnesses, eyewitnesses who

00:15:38.240 testified about Maidan snipers located in these locations in the Hotel Lucina and other locations,

00:15:45.280 shooting in Maidan. What were the, what were the other locations?

00:15:48.800 This was, like, Music Conservatory on the Maidan, Hotel Kozacki, uh, main post office. Um,

00:15:56.000 uh, there was also, uh, Zhoknevi Palace, Oktober Palace, and Bank Arcada, and buildings on the left and

00:16:03.280 right side of, um, of, uh, the massacre site, uh, Hotodecki, and Museini Street. So these locations

00:16:10.640 basically included snipers when, this was not just a single man or single sniper. This was specifically

00:16:17.040 organized and well-prepared operation just to, to place snipers in advance in these locations and know

00:16:24.560 what they would be doing basically. And this is what they, this was done. And they, and these snipers

00:16:28.960 would move from one location to another location freely in the area which was controlled by Maidan

00:16:34.080 opposition. So this is another evidence that, uh, this was, uh, involvement of Maidan opposition.

00:16:39.680 In addition to this, uh, I've, I cited in my, uh, in my book, in my articles and also published online,

00:16:48.240 testimonies by, uh, hundreds of eyewitnesses who testified about snipers located in this

00:16:54.080 locations. Uh, I also, uh, published and, uh, and posted online, uh, testimonies of absolute

00:17:01.760 majority of Maidan activists who were wounded during this Maidan massacre. And most of them testified,

00:17:07.840 absolute majority of them testified to the Ukrainian government investigation and to the Maidan massacre

00:17:13.440 trail that they were shot from locations like Hotel Ukeina, which were not controlled by the Maidan,

00:17:19.120 uh, uh, uh, which were controlled by the Maidan opposition and were not controlled by government

00:17:24.240 forces. So this was anybody. Sorry. Was anybody shot by government forces?

00:17:33.120 According to my research, there were only a few cases in which it's not clear if, um, or it's uncertain,

00:17:41.040 because of lack of evidence or because of, um, uh, of, uh, shots from, uh, which coincide.

00:17:47.760 So you see only in a few cases, uh, when I synchronize all the videos of shooting and shooting by the

00:17:53.440 police and specific protesters killed and wounded, the only in few such cases, uh, they are, they are

00:18:01.120 shooting by the police coincided or gunshots with police coincided with, um, uh, this wounding or

00:18:08.080 killing of Maidan activists. But at the same time, you can hear two gunshots with very different sound.

00:18:14.800 So it's not possible to determine precisely who actually shot them, but, um, in a few cases,

00:18:21.040 but I think it's very likely that they were also shot by Maidan opposition and not by, not by the police,

00:18:28.800 whose members were blamed for this massacre because wounds in almost all activists who were shot and

00:18:35.600 wounded and killed were from a very steep direction. And most of them were from the side and from the

00:18:41.920 back, uh, uh, again, at a very steep angle, which means they were shot from, uh, from buildings like

00:18:48.000 Hotel Ukeina and not on the ground, uh, which was located by, uh, in which you have police shooting.

00:18:54.960 And police were shooting basically in, uh, on, on the ground, on, on, in the walls or in the teeth,

00:19:01.120 specifically to stop advance of Maidan activists. So this wasn't warning shots, basically.

00:19:05.200 This was not to kill them. And also police were shooting in snipers in Hotel Ukeina.

00:19:10.240 There were a lot of, um, gunshot, uh, bullet holes in Hotel Ukeina in the, in floors located

00:19:17.600 at the second floor and above. But there were basically just one gunshot, which was below one,

00:19:24.080 before, below the second floor. So this means at the height of Maidan activists who were shot.

00:19:28.640 So this, this means police were shooting in snipers above,

00:19:32.080 Maidan, above the height of Maidan activists who were in blind spot, uh, basically because

00:19:37.920 police even could not see them, uh, behind a barricade, which, which was, uh, from where,

00:19:44.160 from which they were shooting after they retreated from that area. So this is like testimonies of,

00:19:49.440 even Maidan activists who were shot, they testified about this. There are also like forensic,

00:19:54.160 ballistic and medical examinations. I already mentioned that medical examinations by government

00:19:59.360 experts found that absolute majority of Maidan activists were shot, uh, not from the front,

00:20:04.320 from horizontal level, which was location of the police, but, uh, they were shot from,

00:20:09.600 from behind or from, uh, left or right side, or from, uh, very steep and from very steep angle.

00:20:17.200 If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from the Lotus Eaters, head to our website where you can find more.

00:20:30.080 So,

00:20:32.720 believe you.

00:20:36.000 Yep.

PREVIEW： Realpolitik #27 ｜ The Truth about Maidan with Ivan Katchanovski

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