APRIL 3, 2014

Yulia Gorbunova

Today senior Ukrainian government officials shared preliminary findings of the new government’s investigation into February’s events that resulted in the killing of protesters, and ultimately the ouster of Ukraine’s then-president Viktor Yanukovich.

The clashes that took place from February 18 to 20 were the bloodiest in Ukraine's post-Soviet era: More than 70 people – both protesters and law enforcement – were killed in gunfire, including by sniper shootings. Responsibility for the sniper killings on Maidan have been hotly debated both in Ukraine and internationally.

The interior minister today said investigators had photo and video evidence confirming the involvement of Ukraine’s riot police, Berkut, in a sniper attack on February 20. The shooting resulted in the deaths of 17 protesters (one machine gun was used to gun down 8 people). Several police officers have been detained as suspects. The interior minister accused the former interior minister, along with Ukraine's security services – the SBU – of direct involvement in giving orders for this and other attacks, and alleged that former officials from the Interior Ministry, the SBU, and the prosecutor general's office destroyed documentary and other evidence, forcing the investigators to start from scratch.

[...]

Paet goes on to say that there’s a quickly growing “understanding” that “behind the snipers was not [the ousted President Viktor] Yanukovich but somebody from the new coalition,” and that the coalition doesn’t want to investigate. That, however, was not the doctor’s conclusion, but rather Paet’s guess. Paet later denied assigning blame for the snipers to the new coalition and warned journalists against taking his words out of context.

The doctor later said that she didn’t tell Paet that both police and protesters had the same type of wounds, as she had only seen wounded and killed protesters and had no access to wounded or killed policemen.

This article lists political parties in Ukraine. Ukraine has a multi-party system with numerous political parties, in which no one party often has a chance of gaining power alone, and parties must work with each other to form coalition governments.

Many parties in Ukraine have very small memberships and are unknown to the general public. Party membership in Ukraine is lower than 1% of the population eligible to vote (compared to an average 4.7% in the European Union[1]).[2][3] National parties currently not represented in Ukraine’s national parliament Verkhovna Rada do have representatives in municipal counsels.[4][5][6][7] Small parties used to join in multi-party coalitions (electoral blocks) for the purpose of participating in parliamentary elections; but on November 17, 2011 the Ukrainian Parliament approved an election law that banned the participation of blocs of political parties in parliamentary elections.[8] Ukrainian society's trust of political parties is very low overall.[9] According to an April 2014 poll by Razumkov Centre 14.7%.[10] Ukraine’s election law forbids outside financing of political parties or campaigns.[11]

Removal of Yanukovych[edit]

On 21 February President Yanukovych and the Parliament declared 22 and 23 February to be new days of mourning "Due to the loss of human life as a result of mass disturbances".[248]

In Parliament, Speaker Volodymyr Rybak submitted his resignation, citing alleged illness.[249] Yanukovych's whereabouts were unknown despite media reports he had flown to Kharkiv. Oleksandr Turchynov stated that in fact most of the ministers had disappeared as well as Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko (who is reported to have fled to Belarus[250]) and President Viktor Yanukovych, "The only one legitimate body left is the Verkhovna Rada – so we are here to vote today. The major tasks for today are: to vote for the new speaker, prime minister and interior minister."[209] In the Verkhovna Rada, deputies voted 328:0 (of the 447 deputies)[251] to set the Presidential election date to 25 May.[60][252] The action did not follow the impeachment process as specified by the Constitution of Ukraine (which would have involved formally charging the president with a crime, a review of the charge by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, and a three-fourths majority vote – i.e. at least 338 votes in favor – by the Rada); instead, the Verkhovna Rada declared that Yanukovych "withdrew from his duties in an unconstitutional manner" and cited "circumstances of extreme urgency" as the reason for early elections.[253] Oleksandr Turchynov was then voted by parliament Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament and acting President and Prime Minister of Ukraine.[254][255][256]

Turchynov claimed Viktor Yanukovych had agreed to resign as president, but after consulting with advisers, he disavowed the decision and even a pre-recorded resignation statement.[209] Yanukovych said he would not resign or leave the country, and called decisions by parliament "illegal" and that "The events witnessed by our country and the whole world are an example of a coup d'état," comparing it to the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany in the 1930s.[257]

The Communist Party office in Kiev was looted by unknown masked men armed with batons.[258]

Mr Yanukovych, who attended an EU summit in Lithuania on Friday cited pressure from Russia for his decision.