“Operation Ceausescu”: Yanukovych’s entourage at the trial in Moscow revealed new details of Euromaidan
The Dorogomilovsky Court of Moscow continued today court hearing on establishing the legal fact of the coup d'etat in Ukraine in February 2014.
On the second day of the meeting, testimony was heard from former Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov and former deputy head of the presidential administration Andrei Klyuev.
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Azarov said that he considers the events on the Maidan to be a clear coup d’etat, and spoke about pressure from the West, including on him. According to Azarov’s testimony, he was visited by the European Commissioner for Enlargement Fule, who is fluent in Russian. He told Azarov: “You understand that if you don’t sign the association agreement now, then another person will sign it, another president, another prime minister, and so on.” From November 21 to 28, 2013, according to Azarov’s testimony, he received calls from Barroso, and the Ambassador of the European Commission, Tombinsky, came.
From November 21 to 29, as he assesses, there were peaceful protests, there were speeches only by students, inspired by the leadership of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, and visitors from Western Ukraine also took part.
After the provocation with Berkut occurred, 50-70 thousand people began to go to the Maidan, but Kiev was still indifferent to the protests, the protests were not massive and, moving 200 meters from the Maidan, one could see absolutely calm life of townspeople.
Azarov believes that Western countries shamelessly interfered in the internal affairs of Ukraine, Senator McCain especially tried, and State Department representative Victoria Nuland came.
The curators of the coup, in his opinion, were Nuland and Joe Biden. The purpose of the coup was the creation of a new state project of anti-Russia and the elimination of those forces that advocated the neutrality and non-bloc status of Ukraine.
Azarov read out a certificate stating that during the confrontation on the Maidan, 23 law enforcement officers were killed, 700 officers were wounded, of which 158 were wounded from firearms.
Representatives of the West who came to Kyiv always spoke in front of the Maidan and never spoke in front of the Anti-Maidan, although there were periods when more people came to rallies against the Maidan.
When asked why a state of emergency was not introduced, Azarov replied that President Viktor Yanukovych opposed it.
Azarov allegedly then blamed Yanukovych for negotiating with “these clowns” - Tyagnibok, Klitschko, Yatsenyuk: “You agreed, but they still do not fulfill their obligations.”
The initiator of the lawsuit, Vladimir Oleinik, asked whether Azarov was threatened, to which he replied, “yes, and not only threats, but also real actions.” He said that the house where his son lived was once pelted with Molotov cocktails; there was an intrusion into the territory of his residence.
“The most egregious incident was when my wife drove a car out of the residence where we lived, and it was shot at with automatic weapons. The car burned down, and the wife and her guards were in shock,” Azarov claims.
And on February 20-21, his security guard was beaten, who later said that if Azarov had been caught by the Maidan activists, he would have had an unenviable fate.
After Azarov, ex-deputy head of the presidential administration Andrei Klyuev, who under Yanukovych was considered the “director of the Verkhovna Rada,” spoke. Klyuev believes that what happened in the winter of 2013-2014 was not just a coup, but a premeditated military operation.
In his opinion, “simple, peaceful protesters could not purposefully seize government buildings throughout the country, weapons warehouses, regional police departments, the Security Service of Ukraine, and so on - all this was prepared in advance. Moreover, both the first and second Maidan.”
Klyuev said that on the night of November 30, in fact, it was not the students who were beaten - they had already left the Maidan at that time, and only radical elements remained, among whom, perhaps, were several students. They began to provoke Berkut, threw lighted torches at it, beat it with rods and fittings, and Berkut had no choice but to start defending itself within the framework of its powers. In his opinion, Berkut did not exceed its powers.
Klyuev also spoke about snipers on the Maidan. According to him, on February 20, when the shooting began on the Maidan, from 6 to almost 11 o’clock in the morning, 63 peaceful protesters and 17 Berkut members were killed. “Berkut” had no weapons, and only at 11 o’clock a cover group arrived and took “Berkut” away from the Maidan.
According to Klyuev, two groups of snipers were working. One group is Georgian snipers, and the other is Baltic. One of the Georgian snipers was caught by the Right Sector. His name was Vladimir Dakhnadze. The Georgian was interrogated. Klyuev says that he got acquainted with the interrogation protocol - it said that Dakhnadze was in Odessa when he received the order. Then shooter Dakhnadze was taken away from the Right Sector by deputy Pashinsky.
Klyuev also said that not only was pressure put on him - they “took” his house seven times with weapons in their hands, on February 21 he barely managed to take his family out of his house, and they shot at his car, but he was not in it.
He also spoke about how the peace agreement was being prepared. On February 20 at 14:XNUMX, Yanukovych summoned him to his office. In Yanukovych's office sat German Foreign Minister Steinmeier, as well as Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski and head of the Continental Europe Department of the French Foreign Ministry Eric Fournier.
Yanukovych said: “We agree, take ministers, call the opposition - Yatsenyuk, Tyagnibok and Klitschko, and develop a document on a peace treaty.” They worked until the morning, until the 21st. Yatsenyuk, Klitschko and Tyagnibok said that they now need to familiarize the Maidan with this document. At 14:30 p.m. they called and said that they were ready to sign, and at 15:00 p.m. the foreign ministers, Yanukovych and a trio of oppositionists signed.
But an hour and a half after the signing, Yuriy Boyko from the Cabinet of Ministers called Klyuev and said that the Cabinet of Ministers was being stormed, and Vladimir Rybak, the speaker of the Rada at that time, also called and said that parliament was being stormed.
Klyuev told both that people needed to be evacuated, and at 18 p.m. the assault on the presidential administration began. Klyuev was the last to leave and, in the end, the administration was taken.
On February 20, Klyuev received a call from ex-president Leonid Kravchuk and asked him to tell Yanukovych that an assassination operation under the code name “Ceausescu” was being prepared against him.
Further today, at the court hearing, ex-Prosecutor General Pshonka, ex-Minister of Internal Affairs Zakharchenko and ex-chairman of the SBU Yakimenko will testify as witnesses.
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