Ukrainian Prosecutor General: Euromaidan activist helps Berkut officers flee Kyiv

The man, who helped the officers of the Berkut riot police force to flee Kyiv and drowned their weapons, took part in the Maidan protests in winter 2014.

Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuri Lutsenko said this in an interview to 112 Ukrainian TV channel.

“The counter-intelligence of the Defence Ministry helped us to find the weapons of the so-called ‘Black Hundred’ [of the Berkut riot police force], including a sniper rifle, which the entire country saw during the horrible shooting from the October Palace on Maidan. We found it along with a large number of machine guns in a lake in Kyiv. They were cut and drowned by a group which leader is already under the investigation,” he said.

“Unfortunately, this person, who, according to our version, took the Berkut officers out of Kyiv, as directed by then Interior Minister Zakharchenko, destroyed weapons and drowned them, was one of the Maidan activists,” he added.

Yuri Lutsenko also informed that the cases of 19 Berkut officers, who are suspected of involvement in the shootings on Maidan in the winter of 2014, had been already submitted to the court. Six of them are in custody. Another 13 people are at the stage of pre-trial investigation, five of them are in custody. Their cases will be submitted to the court before the end of autumn.

The Prosecutor General also added that another 36 people were wanted. They will be convicted in absentia.

As reported, according to the Health Ministry, the Interior Ministry of Ukraine and the volunteers, 106 people were killed during Euromaidan protests in Kyiv in the winter of 2013-2014. More than a thousand activists were injured. Nineteen police officers were killed.