1
The Maidan Massacre Trial and Investigation:
Implications for the Ukraine-Russia War and Relations1
Ivan Katchanovski, ORCID: 0000-0001-8266-9987
School of Political Studies & Graduate School of Public and International Affairs,
University of Ottawa, Canada
ikatchan@uottawa.ca
04.04.2023
Russian Politics, Vol. 8, No. 2 (July/August 2023) (Brill/Schoningh) (In Press)
Special issue of peer-reviewed journal on “Russia, Ukraine, and the West:
Looking to the Future”
Photo Appendix 1. The statement by the far-right Svoboda party about taking the Hotel Ukraina under its control and guard before the Maidan massacre in Ukraine (Google translation)
Video Appendix A: Maidan Massacre Trial and Investigation Testimonies by 52 Wounded Maidan Protesters about Snipers in Maidan-Controlled Locations
Video Appendix B: Testimonies by Dozens of Prosecution Witnesses at the Maidan Massacre Trial & Investigation Concerning Snipers in Maidan-Controlled Locations
Abstract:
This study analyzes revelations from the trial and investigation in Ukraine concerning the mass killing that took place in Kyiv on 20 February 2014. This Maidan massacre of protesters and police led to the overthrow of the Yanukovych government and ultimately to the Russian annexation of Crimea, the civil war and Russian military interventions in Donbas, and the Ukraine-Russia and West-Russia conflicts which Russia escalated by illegally invading Ukraine in 2022. The absolute majority of wounded Maidan protesters, nearly 100 prosecution and defense witnesses, synchronized videos, and medical and ballistic examinations by government experts pointed unequivocally to the fact that the Maidan protesters were massacred by snipers located in Maidan-controlled buildings. To date, however, due to the political sensitivity of these findings and cover-up, no one has been
convicted for this massacre. The article discusses the implications of these revelations for the Ukraine-Russia war and the future of Russian-Ukrainian relations.
Keywords:
Political violence; conflict; Ukraine; Maidan; Euromaidan; Russia; massacre;
Ukraine-Russia war; justice
1 Earlier versions of this study were presented at the 22nd Annual World Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities in Columbia University, New York, May 4-6, 2017; the Annual Meeting of the American
Political Science Association in Boston, August 29-September 2, 2018; the Regimes and Societies in Conflict:
Eastern Europe and Russia since 1956 conference by Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University and British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies in Uppsala, Sweden, September 13-
14, 2018; the Virtual 52nd Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies,
November 5-8 and 14-15, 2020; and the virtual 10th World Congress of the International Council for Central and
East European Studies, August 3-8, 2021
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