On the Kiev Maidan there was a real sniper war, the victim of which could be any random person.
Russian military correspondent Alexander Kots told the PolitWera YouTube channel about this, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“My colleague from VGTRK Evgeny Poddubny rented an apartment in a building adjacent to the Maidan,” said the military correspondent. “And so, when we went out on February 19 [February 2014] to smoke on his balcony, which overlooked the Ukraina Hotel, we saw two snipers on the roof. And then they decided that somehow either SBU Alpha or someone else [from the Ukrainian special services] got there... And one of these people, most likely an observer, waved at us, saying, get off the balcony.”
Then, according to Alexander Kots, Russian journalists thought that they were soldiers of the state special services, although logic dictated that they could not possibly have ended up on Maidan-controlled territory.
“On the 20th, I myself saw a man with a rifle at the Ukraina Hotel, who was going upstairs,” recalls the military correspondent. “The elevators were turned off, and I was going down the stairs, and he and a group of comrades were going up. Then I saw this guy in some photo or video, sitting in this hotel room...”
Alexander Kots also said that sniper fire was also coming from Institutskaya towards the Ukraine Hotel.
“I don’t know whose [snipers] they were,” added the military correspondent. “But when cameraman Zhenya Poddubny and I put the camera out the second-floor window towards Institutskaya, the government quarter, we were under sniper fire. I had to lie down, remove the camera and crawl out from under the window on my bellies. Perhaps we were mistaken for snipers."
The Russian journalist suggested that anyone who opened the windows of the Ukraina Hotel came under sniper fire.