MENU
Documenting
war crimes in Ukraine

The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

Similar articles

Top post in Zelensky administration given to Yanukovych era police official implicated in Maidan crimesUkraine’s new Prosecutor General moves to reverse progress on solving Maidan crimesWho is behind the campaign to discredit Maidan and turn its victims into perpetrators?Sombre Anniversary with hopes of justice for Maidan victims waningDramatic twist in trial of ex-Berkut officer over savage torture of Maidan activists Ukraine to try ex-Berkut officers accused of gunning down Euromaidan activists Court in Ukraine jails ex-Berkut officers for savage attack on Euromaidan activistsFirst sentences in Ukraine over mass murder of Maidan activists Volodymyr Panasenko, victim of Ukraine’s most egregious miscarriage of justice, freed after over 16 yearsControversial verdict over abduction, torture and killing of Euromaidan activist Yury VerbytskyyWhat did the media team of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group deal with in 2022?Life sentence in Ukraine’s first war crimes trial since Russia’s total invasion but questions remain Ukraine Should Ratife The Rome Statute Of ICC — Euromaidan SOS appealRussian soldiers shoot at Kherson protesters demanding that Russia get out of Ukraine Euromaidan SOS Statement on International Support Priorities for UkraineImprisoned for seven years as Russia's revenge for Ukraine’s Euromaidan Crucial law adopted to help Russia’s Ukrainian political prisoners and hostagesUS imposes sanctions on former Yanukovych aide Andriy Portnov for corrupting Ukraine’s courts Yanukovych phoned Russian President Putin 12 times during the mass killings on Maidan Former Ukrainian Interior Ministry official to face trial over Maidan killings after imprisonment in Russia

Zelensky gives top post to official involved in storming of Maidan

19.01.2021   
Halya Coynash

18-19 February 2014 Photo uainfo

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made yet another baffling appointmentv, this time naming Oleksandr Kuksa head of a department within the Security Service [SBU].  According to Advocacy Advisory Panel lawyers, representing Maidan victims or their families, Kuksa was deputy to Oleksandr Shcheholev, who is currently on trial, accused of having organized and carried out the storming of protesters on Maidan via the so-called ‘anti-terrorist operation’.   The lawyers point out that Shcheholev’s own testimony suggests that Kuksa was directly involved in the events  over which his former superior is facing charges.

During the Revolution of Dignity, as the Euromaidan protests are now known, Shcheholev was head of the Kyiv branch of the SBU and was directly in charge of the ‘anti-terrorist operation’ from 18 to 20 February 2014, the bloodiest days of Maidan.

He was first charged in March 2015, and then taken into custody in August that year, however was released in June 2019, and is now only under a personal undertaking. His trial is taking place at the Shevchenkivsk District Court in Kyiv. The Advocacy Advisory Panel report that during the hearing on 19 May 2020, Shcheholev stated that during the night over which he is charged (from 18 – 19 February 2014), he took Kuksa with him when he went from the SBU to the Kyiv Police Headquarters.  Kuksa at the time was the deputy head of the Kyiv and Kyiv Regional SBU,  with his particular focus being ‘terrorism’.

The lawyers note that the prosecution has established and demonstrated in court that during the night in question, Shcheholv, together with Kuksa, were present in the office of the head of Kyiv police Valery Mazan.  They were there with all the members of the SBU, Interior Ministry, Emergencies Ministry and prosecutor’s office “needed to launch the ‘boomerang’ plan.  This was a plan to totally clear Maidan and all the area around it of protesters, something that could only be done through force and inevitable bloodshed.

Very many of those involved in organizing the gunning down of protesters and other violent measures aimed at crushing Maidan are now in hiding, mostly in Russia where many, if not all, have received Russian citizenship.

Oleksandr Shcheholev is on trial, with the charges of organizing and carrying out the ‘anti-terrorist operation’, including the attack on the Trade Union building.

His deputy, who accompanied him during the evening from 18-19 February 2014, has now been appointed the ‘head of the SBU’s Department for the Defence of National Statehood’.

This is by no means the only appointment by Zelensky which has aroused, at the very least bemusement.

One especially shocking appointment was on 5 August 2020 when Zelensky named Oleh Tatarov Deputy Head of the Office of the President.  Tatarov was not only the Deputy Head of the Interior Ministry’s Central Investigative Department during the Euromaidan protests, but on at least one occasion openly lied about a shocking attack by Berkut officers on peaceful Maidan activists in January 2014.  

The move was met with outrage by persecuted Maidan activists and the families of Nebesna Sotnya, those who lost their lives during the protests.

In late 2020, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau [NABU] presented Tatarov with serious corruption charges.  In a very worrying move, the Office of the Prosecutor General (Iryna Venediktova) took this criminal investigation away from NABU, passing it instead to the SBU.  A supposed statement that Tatarov was suspending his work, pending the end of the investigation, does not appear to have meant very much.  As of the end of December 2020, he was reported to still be working. 

With respect to both Tatarov and Kuksa, their positions under the regime of President Viktor Yanukovych should surely have meant they fall under the Law on Lustration, preventing them from holding government office.  On the other hand,  Zelensky has already changed the name of the Presidential Administration (to Office of the President) in order to bypass this law and enable his earlier appointment of Andriy Bohdan as Head of that ‘Office’, and the lustration law seems all but forgotten. 

 

 

 Share this