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COMMENT: In FTR #981, we exam­ined the Ukrain­ian fas­cist foun­da­tion of much of the “Rus­sia-Gate” psy-op,” fol­low­ing that with detailed exam­i­na­tion of the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Paul Man­afort may have actu­al­ly been work­ing as a U.S./Western intel­li­gence asset or agent, delib­er­ate­ly pre­cip­i­tat­ing the Maid­an sniper fire that sound­ed the death knell for the Yanukovich regime.

This post updates the boil­ing sew­er that is Ukraine, uti­liz­ing infor­ma­tion from Ger­man For­eign Pol­i­cy (which feeds along the low­er right-hand page of this web­site.) We take note of sev­er­al key points:

1. Cor­rup­tion in Ukraine remains ram­pant and “rule by oli­garch” con­tin­ues unabat­ed under Poroshenko, an oli­garch him­self and the for­mer finance min­is­ter for Yanukovich.
2. Sup­port­ers of Maid­an have been high­ly crit­i­cal of the con­tin­u­a­tion of this grotesque sta­tus quo.
3. Among the per­pe­tra­tors of ongo­ing, insti­tu­tion­al­ized cor­rup­tion in Ukraine has been the son of Arsen Avakov, the inte­ri­or min­is­ter and a patron of the Nazi Azov Bat­tal­ion. ” . . . . Cor­rup­tion con­tin­ues at high lev­els. For exam­ple, the case of Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Arsen Avakov’s son, who sold back­packs to the army at six times their nor­mal price, alleged­ly caus­ing dam­age in the six-dig­it euros. . . .”
   
4. Inves­ti­ga­tion of Avakov, jr’s activ­i­ties has been [pre­dictably] inter­dict­ed. ” . . . .When the Nation­al Anti-Cor­rup­tion Bureau searched the man’s house, the Nation­al Guard, under the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the inte­ri­or min­is­ter inter­vened and halt­ed the search — under the pre­text of hav­ing to vacate the build­ing because of a bomb threat. . . .”
5. An Ital­ian TV doc­u­men­tary alleges that eth­nic Geor­gian snipers were involved in the Maid­an shoot­ings, fur­ther indi­cat­ing that the Maid­an sniper shoot­ings were a pos­si­ble provo­ca­tion. (The doc­u­men­tary does come from a Berlus­coni-con­trolled out­let, how­ev­er it dove­tails cred­i­bly with oth­er avail­able infor­ma­tion. UNA-UNSO, the lat­est iter­a­tion of the UPA was very active in the cau­ca­sus and Chechens have been work­ing with Pravy Sek­tor and ele­ments asso­ci­at­ed with the Azov Bat­tal­ion. As dis­cussed in FTR #850, for­mer Geor­gian pres­i­dent Mikhail Saakashvili became the gov­er­nor of Odessa province and is very close to Ihor Kolo­moisky, anoth­er patron of the Azov Bat­tal­ion.) “In an Ital­ian TV doc­u­men­tary on the Feb­ru­ary 20, 2014 Maid­an mas­sacre, seri­ous accu­sa­tions were made against sev­er­al politi­cians in Ukraine. . . .  In the doc­u­men­tary, three Geor­gians, incrim­i­nat­ing them­selves for their own par­tic­i­pa­tion, report that some of the lead­ers of the protests, who are today mem­bers of Kiev’s par­lia­ment, had sup­plied weapons to the snipers, who, at the time, indis­crim­i­nate­ly killed police­men and demon­stra­tors. Offi­cial­ly, this mas­sacre is still being attrib­uted to Ukrain­ian repres­sive organs or to unspec­i­fied Rus­sians. The Geor­gians also report that the cur­rent speak­er of the par­lia­ment, Andriy Paru­biy, was often seen in the hotel, from where the snipers were fir­ing that day. As ‘Maid­an Commander,‘Parubiy had been in charge of con­trol­ling armed gangs on that square. The man, whose real role at the time remains unclear, was a guest at a con­fer­ence held by the Kon­rad Ade­nauer Foun­da­tion and a speak­er at NATO events. . . .”
6. Paru­biy was one of the main orga­niz­ers of the Orange Rev­o­lu­tion, which brought Vik­tor Yuschenko to pow­er and installed OUN/B deriv­a­tive orga­ni­za­tions in pow­er in Ukraine, sort of a “pre-Maid­an” Maid­an.” . . . .  Fol­low­ing his retire­ment from the par­ty, this expe­ri­enced protest activist became one of the main orga­niz­ers of the 2004 ‘Orange Rev­o­lu­tion.’  . . .”
7. Andriy Paru­biy was the first defense min­is­ter of the Ukraine inter­im gov­ern­ment and a mem­ber of the OUN/B‑redux Svo­bo­da Par­ty. His role in the events dove­tails with the pos­si­ble par­tic­i­pa­tion of fas­cist and Nazi snipers who were to par­tic­i­pate in the Azov Bat­tal­ion. “. . . . The Geor­gians’ accu­sa­tions also impli­cate, at least indi­rect­ly, the ‘Com­man­der of the Maid­an,’ Andriy Paru­biy. Paru­biy comes from the Ukrain­ian fas­cist scene. In the ear­ly 1990s he was one of the founders of the extreme right-wing Social Nation­al Par­ty of Ukraine. Since 1996, he was the leader of its mil­i­tarist street fight­ing sub­sidiary ‘Patri­ot of Ukraine.’ Fol­low­ing his retire­ment from the par­ty, this expe­ri­enced protest activist became one of the main orga­niz­ers of the 2004 ‘Orange Rev­o­lu­tion.’ In 2013, he assumed the same func­tion at the Maid­an, where he was respon­si­ble for none oth­er than secu­ri­ty and the ‘self-defense units,’ which were often made up of heav­i­ly armed thugs. In the Ital­ian TV doc­u­men­tary, it was report­ed that Paru­biy was going in and out of Hotel Ukraina, from where numer­ous dead­ly shots were being fired. Paru­biy, claims that the hotel from which these shots were being fired — which was firm­ly under the Maid­an demon­stra­tors’ con­trol — had been tak­en over ‘by snipers who arrived from Rus­sia and who were con­trolled by Rus­sia.’ . . .”
   

1.    “Sow­ing Chaos (I)”; german-foreign-policy.com/11/24/2017.Four years after the begin­ning of the Maid­an protests, seri­ous accu­sa­tions are being lev­eled against lead­ing activists of the pro-west­ern oppo­nents of the reign­ing gov­ern­ment, at the time. Three Geor­gians, who incrim­i­nate them­selves for their own par­tic­i­pa­tion, have told the Ital­ian media that the snipers, who had unleashed the Feb­ru­ary 20, 2013 Maid­an mas­sacre, had alleged­ly been act­ing under orders — and with the prac­ti­cal sup­port — of the oppo­si­tion. Their state­ments con­firm the con­fes­sions made ear­li­er — some even in pub­licly — by oth­er snipers. There has been no reac­tion from Ukrain­ian author­i­ties. While Kiev is mark­ing the fourth anniver­sary of the begin­ning of the protests this week, more than three-fourths of the pop­u­la­tion sees their coun­try as plunged into ruin and chaos, accord­ing to a poll. The pow­er of the Ukrain­ian oli­garchs is still intact and cor­rup­tion is becom­ing ram­pant. Only anti-Russ­ian mea­sures are being suc­cess­ful­ly exe­cut­ed includ­ing those mas­sive­ly lim­it­ing free­dom of the press.

The Pow­er of the Oli­garchs

Four years after the begin­ning of the Maid­an protests on Novem­ber 21, 2013, the abus­es, which also had pro­voked the demon­stra­tions, are still preva­lent through­out the coun­try, which is now ori­ent­ed on the West. The pow­er of the oli­garchs is still intact. Already one year ago, experts not­ed that even though there have been some reshuf­fles amongst divers frac­tions of the oli­garchs, (german-foreign-policy.com report­ed [1]) it does not change the fact that they are still large­ly con­trol­ling Kiev’s pol­i­tics. This has been con­firmed by recent stud­ies. The last two decades have shown “that the peri­od­i­cal changes of polit­i­cal regime in Ukraine have had mere­ly a lim­it­ed effect on the oli­garchic sys­tem,” accord­ing to the authors of an analy­sis by the Swedish Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion Agency (SIDA). Even after the Feb­ru­ary 2014 putsch, oli­garchs are still in con­trol of “strate­gic branch­es of the econ­o­my” — for exam­ple, around 80% of the Ukrain­ian tele­vi­sion market.[2] “There has not been much change,” notes the Brus­sels think tank Bruegel, “the polit­i­cal influ­ence of some oli­garchs increased even further.”[3] In fact, since 2014, an oli­garch is offi­cial­ly lead­ing the coun­try — Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko.

Cor­rup­tion and Fake News

Cor­rup­tion con­tin­ues at high lev­els. For exam­ple, the case of Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Arsen Avakov’s son, who sold back­packs to the army at six times their nor­mal price, alleged­ly caus­ing dam­age in the six-dig­it euros. When the Nation­al Anti-Cor­rup­tion Bureau searched the man’s house, the Nation­al Guard, under the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the inte­ri­or min­is­ter inter­vened and halt­ed the search — under the pre­text of hav­ing to vacate the build­ing because of a bomb threat.[4] This is but a minor case, when com­pared to oth­ers. Ser­hiy Leshchenko, a staunch sup­port­er of the putsch, who has worked as an inves­tiga­tive reporter for the pro-west­ern dai­ly Ukrain­s­ka Praw­da, before he was elect­ed to the Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment and became a mem­ber of the its Anti-Cor­rup­tion Com­mit­tee, is reg­u­lar­ly voic­ing sharp crit­i­cism. In the par­lia­ment, Leshchenko reports, “cor­rup­tion is in the air,” which is par­tic­u­lar­ly evi­dent when the bud­get has to be passed. The respec­tive par­lia­men­tary ses­sions last “until five in the morn­ing, because the cor­rupt inter­ests of all the polit­i­cal­ly influ­en­tial cen­ters must be satisfied.”[5] Accord­ing to Leshchenko, the Pres­i­dent not only per­son­al­ly con­trols the state attor­ney’s office, but even the secret ser­vice that has “civ­il soci­ety activists, inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists and politi­cians of the oppo­si­tion” under sur­veil­lance and inter­venes “in the set­tle­ment of busi­ness con­flicts.” To dis­cred­it the crit­ics, a “Ukrain­ian troll fac­to­ry” has been estab­lished — “a cen­ter to pro­duce fic­ti­tious inter­net users and fake news for infor­ma­tion attacks on regime oppo­nents.”

Decay and Chaos

Oli­garchic rule and cor­rup­tion in a per­sist­ing dis­as­trous social and eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion is now hav­ing an effect on the mood of the Ukrain­ian pop­u­la­tion. For exam­ple, only 17 per­cent of the Ukraini­ans have the feel­ing that a “con­sol­i­da­tion” — by what­ev­er def­i­n­i­tion — is tak­ing place in the coun­try; 75 per­cent describe the cur­rent devel­op­ment as “decay,” 85 per­cent call it sim­ply “chaos,” and 69 per­cent are con­vinced that it is eas­i­ly con­ceiv­able that demon­stra­tions against the pro-west­ern gov­ern­ment could take place through­out the country.[6] Pres­i­dent Poroshenko’s pop­u­lar­i­ty rat­ing has plunged dra­mat­i­cal­ly — accord­ing to vary­ing opin­ion polls — to between two to six percent.[7]

Free­dom of the Press under Attack

Not just the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­men­t’s cor­rup­tion but even some of its exor­bi­tant Rus­so­pho­bia has pro­voked crit­i­cism from some of the for­eign Maid­an sym­pa­thiz­ers. For exam­ple, Pres­i­dent Poroshenko’s deci­sion last May, not only to annul the Russ­ian tele­vi­sion’s Ukrain­ian license, but also to shut down the pop­u­lar Russ­ian social net­work “VKon­tak­te” (“In Con­tact”) and “Odnok­lass­nike” (“Class­mates”) as well as the “mail.ru” email provider has pro­voked angry protests. Human Rights Watch crit­i­cized these mea­sures as “cyn­i­cal, polit­i­cal­ly cal­cu­lat­ed attacks on mil­lions of Ukraini­ans’ right to infor­ma­tion.” Reporters With­out Bor­ders com­plained that this amounts to an “unac­cept­able assault on free­dom of expres­sion and the press.”[8] Kiev also recent­ly passed a new lan­guage law, which severe­ly restricts the use of the coun­try’s minor­i­ty lan­guages. This affects, above all the Russ­ian-speak­ing minor­i­ty, which, even after the seces­sion of Crimea and parts of East­ern Ukraine, is still quite large. How­ev­er, because these mea­sures also affect Ukraine’s Hun­gar­i­an-speak­ing minor­i­ty, the Hun­gar­i­an gov­ern­ment has announced that it would block Kiev’s rap­proche­ment efforts toward the EU and NATO until this law is repealed.

On Orders of Pro-West­ern Forces

Where­as the polit­i­cal lead­ers of the pro-west­ern Ukraine fes­tive­ly cel­e­brate the fourth anniver­sary of the begin­ning of the Maid­an demon­stra­tions, new reports have become avail­able indi­cat­ing that the Feb­ru­ary 20, 2014 blood­bath in Kiev — which gave the last incite­ment to esca­la­tion of protests, lead­ing to the over­throw of the Yanukovych gov­ern­ment — had been trig­gered by snipers, work­ing on orders of gov­ern­ment oppo­nents. One of the snipers had already admit­ted to this back in Feb­ru­ary 2015, there­by con­firm­ing what had become com­mon knowl­edge just a few days after the blood­bath in Kiev. In a secret­ly record­ed tele­phone call, the Eston­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Urmas Paet had report­ed to the EU*s head of For­eign Pol­i­cy, Cather­ine Ash­ton, in ear­ly March 2014, that there was wide­spread sus­pi­cion that “some­one from the new coali­tion” in the Ukrain­ian cap­i­tal may have ordered the sniper mur­ders. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[9]) In Feb­ru­ary 2016, Maid­an activist Ivan Bubenchik con­fessed that in the course of the mas­sacre, he had shot Ukrain­ian police offi­cers. Bubenchik con­firmed this in a film that had attract­ed inter­na­tion­al attention.[10]

“Shoot­ing Indis­crim­i­nate­ly’

Last week, the Ital­ian dai­ly “Il Gior­nale,” as well as the “Canale 5” tele­vi­sion chan­nel pub­lished a report reveal­ing more details. Three Geor­gians report­ed that on the day of the shoot­ing, they too had been employed by the oppo­nents of the gov­ern­ment at the time as snipers. They say that they had been explic­it­ly ordered to shoot at both police­men and demon­stra­tors — to “sow chaos.”[11] If this is true, the offi­cial nar­ra­tive, also prop­a­gat­ed by the gov­ern­ment in Berlin — that the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­men­t’s repres­sive forces had delib­er­ate­ly com­mit­ted the Feb­ru­ary 20 mas­sacre — caves in. Equal­ly grave is the fact that the three Geor­gians are not only heav­i­ly impli­cat­ing them­selves, but their tes­ti­monies sub­stan­ti­ate grave sus­pi­cions around some of the influ­en­tial politi­cians in the cur­rent pro-west­ern Ukraine. german-foreign-policy.com will report more soon.

[1] See also Zauber­lehrlinge (III).

[2] Woj­ciech Konończuk, Denis Cenușa, Kor­ne­ly Kakachia: Oli­garchs in Ukraine, Moldo­va and Geor­gia as key obsta­cles to reforms. Swedish Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment Coop­er­a­tion Agency 24.05.2017.

[3] Marek Dabrows­ki: Ukraine’s oli­garchs are bad for democ­ra­cy and eco­nom­ic reform. bruegel.org 03.10.2017.

[4] Rein­hard Lauter­bach: Solide zer­strit­ten. junge Welt 04.11.2017.

[5] Sergej Leschtschenko: Marken­ze­ichen Kor­rup­tion. zeit.de 05.05.2017. See also Das kor­rupteste Land in Europa.

[6] Umfra­gen zur Entwick­lung der sozialen Lage und zur Protest­stim­mung in der Bevölkerung. In: Ukraine-Analy­sen Nr. 191, 15.11.2017.

[7] Rein­hard Lauter­bach: Solide zer­strit­ten. junge Welt 04.11.2017.

[8] Zitiert nach: Stef­fen Halling: Kri­tik­los her­aus aus dem Netz des Fein­des? In: Ukraine-Analy­sen Nr. 186, 14.06.2017. S. 2f.

[9] See also The Kiev Esca­la­tion Strat­e­gy and From Račak to Maid­an.

[10] Katya Gorchin­skaya: He Killed for the Maid­an. foreignpolicy.com 26.02.2016.

[11] Gian Mica­lessin: La ver­sione dei cec­chi­ni sul­la strage di Kiev: “Ordi­ni dal­l’op­po­sizione”. ilgiornale.it 15.11.2017.

2. “Sow­ing Chaos (II);” german-foreign-policy.com; 11/27/2017.

In an Ital­ian TV doc­u­men­tary on the Feb­ru­ary 20, 2014 Maid­an mas­sacre, seri­ous accu­sa­tions were made against sev­er­al politi­cians in Ukraine, includ­ing influ­en­tial politi­cians, who are Ger­many’s coop­er­a­tion part­ners. In the doc­u­men­tary, three Geor­gians, incrim­i­nat­ing them­selves for their own par­tic­i­pa­tion, report that some of the lead­ers of the protests, who are today mem­bers of Kiev’s par­lia­ment, had sup­plied weapons to the snipers, who, at the time, indis­crim­i­nate­ly killed police­men and demon­stra­tors. Offi­cial­ly, this mas­sacre is still being attrib­uted to Ukrain­ian repres­sive organs or to unspec­i­fied Rus­sians. The Geor­gians also report that the cur­rent speak­er of the par­lia­ment, Andriy Paru­biy, was often seen in the hotel, from where the snipers were fir­ing that day. As “Maid­an Com­man­der,” Paru­biy had been in charge of con­trol­ling armed gangs on that square. The man, whose real role at the time remains unclear, was a guest at a con­fer­ence held by the Kon­rad Ade­nauer Foun­da­tion and a speak­er at NATO events.

Esca­la­tion Strat­e­gy

The Ital­ian Canale 5 TV chan­nel recent­ly aired a doc­u­men­tary on the Feb­ru­ary 20, 2014 Maid­an mas­sacre [1] that focus­es on the tes­ti­monies of three Geor­gians report­ing on the Maid­an protests and the esca­la­tion of vio­lence in Feb­ru­ary. The three Geor­gians, who had had mil­i­tary train­ing — and no per­son­al rela­tion­ship to the demon­stra­tors in Kiev — were recruit­ed in the Geor­gian cap­i­tal Tbil­isi in mid-Jan­u­ary 2014 and flown to Ukraine. One of the Geor­gians explains that he had been cho­sen because of his sniper skills. Accord­ing to the reports, their main job was to pro­voke the Ukrain­ian repres­sive forces into bru­tal­ly crack­ing down on the demon­stra­tors. The three Geor­gians had their role to play in the strat­e­gy of esca­la­tion, pre­vi­ous­ly agreed upon by the lead­ers of the protest — includ­ing Vitali Klitschko, the pro­tégé of Germany’s for­eign policy,[2] and today’s may­or of Kiev. “I think we have paved the road for a more rad­i­cal esca­la­tion of the sit­u­a­tion,” one can read in an email dat­ed Jan­u­ary 9, 2014, which lat­er cir­cu­lat­ed online and is attrib­uted to Klitschko. “Is it not high time to con­tin­ue with more res­olute actions?” the author of the email asks.[3]

Fur­nished Weapons

In the doc­u­men­tary, the three Geor­gians describe how they had been posi­tioned on the morn­ing of Feb­ru­ary 20, 2014 — one in the Con­ser­va­to­ry, two in the Ukraina Hotel, both build­ings adja­cent to the Maid­an. The first shots that day were fired from the Con­ser­va­to­ry killing police­men. Lat­er that day, snipers in the Ukraina Hotel delib­er­ate­ly killed demon­stra­tors. With their reports, the Geor­gians con­firm what has been known for years from two oth­er snipers, who had also incrim­i­nat­ed them­selves for their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the mas­sacre. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[4]) The snipers had act­ed on orders of gov­ern­ment oppo­nents with the aim of sow­ing chaos and thus ini­ti­at­ing Pres­i­dent Yanukovych’s over­throw. Accord­ing to the three Geor­gians, Ser­hiy Pashyn­sky, at that time mem­ber of the par­lia­men­tary oppo­si­tion, was play­ing a key role. He had fur­nished the snipers in the Con­ser­va­to­ry and in the Ukraina Hotel with the nec­es­sary weapons. This tes­ti­mo­ny is con­firmed by doc­u­men­tary video footage show­ing Pashyn­sky shield­ing the trans­port of a sniper rifle through the mid­dle of the demon­stra­tion dur­ing the esca­la­tion of vio­lence. Fol­low­ing the putsch in late Feb­ru­ary 2014, Pashyn­sky became the head of Kiev’s Pres­i­den­tial Admin­is­tra­tion and, as mem­ber of the gov­ern­ing People’s Front Par­ty, is today pre­sid­ing over the Rada Com­mit­tee on Nation­al Secu­ri­ty and Defense.

On the Maid­an Stage

Accord­ing to the three Geor­gians, Volodymyr Parasyuk was also involved in deliv­er­ing weapons. Parasyuk had been the leader of one of the fas­cist com­bat units on the Maid­an. Fol­low­ing the putsch, he had first par­tic­i­pat­ed in one of the ultra rightwing irreg­u­lar mili­tias (the Bat­tal­ion Dnipro) in the East Ukraine civ­il war, before he was elect­ed to par­lia­ment in Octo­ber 2014. On the evening of Feb­ru­ary 21, 2014 — the day fol­low­ing the mas­sacre — it was Parasyuk, who, from the stage at the Maid­an, called out for Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yanukovych to step down imme­di­ate­ly or he would be over­thrown at gun­point. Parasyuk made a name for him­self with this threat. Videos depict him stand­ing right beside Vitali Klitschko on the stage. Berlin had main­tained reg­u­lar con­tact to Klitschko at the time. Yanukovych — ful­ly aware of the mas­sacre — prob­a­bly took Parasyuk’s threat seri­ous­ly and imme­di­ate­ly fled Kiev.

Nation­al Hero of Ukraine

Their tes­ti­monies are prob­a­bly most incrim­i­nat­ing for the fourth Geor­gian, Mamu­ka Mamu­lashvili, who, they say, had recruit­ed the three Geor­gians in Tbil­isi, and — togeth­er with a US sol­dier under the assumed name of Bri­an Christo­pher Boyenger — brought them to Kiev. Mamu­lashvili had been a mil­i­tary advi­sor to the long-time Geor­gian Pres­i­dent Mikheil Saakashvili, from whose entourage the three snipers had been recruit­ed for the Kiev mis­sion. Fol­low­ing the putsch, Mamu­lashvili fought with the “Geor­gian Legion” in the East Ukrain­ian civ­il war, for which he was offi­cial­ly award­ed the hon­orary title of “Nation­al Hero of Ukraine.” Saakashvili, on the oth­er hand, who fled to the Unit­ed States after his pres­i­den­cy in 2013 to avoid stand­ing tri­al in Geor­gia, had always sup­port­ed the Maid­an protests and in 2015, began his new polit­i­cal career in the now pro-west­ern Ukraine — first as pres­i­den­tial advi­sor, then as Gov­er­nor of Odessa and — since his rift with Pres­i­dent Poroshenko — as an oppo­si­tion politi­cian seek­ing the over­throw the gov­ern­ment. In late 2003, Saakashvili had also come to pow­er in Geor­gia through a putsch, which, in turn, had served as a mod­el for the Maid­an.

The Com­man­der of the Maid­an

The Geor­gians’ accu­sa­tions also impli­cate, at least indi­rect­ly, the “Com­man­der of the Maid­an,” Andriy Paru­biy. Paru­biy comes from the Ukrain­ian fas­cist scene. In the ear­ly 1990s he was one of the founders of the extreme right-wing SocialNation­al Par­ty of Ukraine. Since 1996, he was the leader of its mil­i­tarist street fight­ing sub­sidiary “Patri­ot of Ukraine.” Fol­low­ing his retire­ment from the par­ty, this expe­ri­enced protest activist became one of the main orga­niz­ers of the 2004 “Orange Rev­o­lu­tion.” In 2013, he assumed the same func­tion at the Maid­an, where he was respon­si­ble for none oth­er than secu­ri­ty and the “self-defense units,” which were often made up of heav­i­ly armed thugs. In the Ital­ian TV doc­u­men­tary, it was report­ed that Paru­biy was going in and out of Hotel Ukraina, from where numer­ous dead­ly shots were being fired. Paru­biy, claims that the hotel from which these shots were being fired — which was firm­ly under the Maid­an demon­stra­tors’ con­trol — had been tak­en over “by snipers who arrived from Rus­sia and who were con­trolled by Russia.”[5] Paru­biy, who, accord­ing to for­mer US Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, was con­fer­ring with the US Ambas­sador to Ukraine, Geof­frey Pyatt through­out the upheavals almost on an hourly basis, has nev­er real­ly had his role in the putsch explained. Fol­low­ing the putsch, he was first appoint­ed to the post of head of the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty and Defense Coun­cil. Since April 14, 2016 he has been serv­ing as Pres­i­dent of Ukraine’s Par­lia­ment.

Berlin’s Coop­er­a­tion Part­ner

Thanks to this posi­tion, Paru­biy can now serve as a coop­er­a­tion part­ner for Ger­man for­eign pol­i­cy. He has head­ed, for exam­ple, a del­e­ga­tion of Ukrain­ian par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, who, from May 22 — 25, 2016 were in Caden­ab­bia, Italy with CDU/CSU par­lia­men­tar­i­ans at the CDU-affil­i­at­ed Kon­rad Ade­nauer Foun­da­tion’s Edu­ca­tion­al Cen­ter. A fel­low at the Ger­man Insti­tute for Inter­na­tion­al and Secu­ri­ty Affairs (SWP) and Matthias Lüt­ten­berg, Head of the Rus­sia and Ukraine Depart­ment of the Ger­man Chan­cellery made pre­sen­ta­tions. At this meet­ing, it was agreed that Paru­biy would vis­it the Bun­destag in the sum­mer of 2016.[6] As the then Ger­man Pres­i­dent Joachim Gauck par­tic­i­pat­ed at the Ukrain­ian state cer­e­mo­ny in mem­o­ry of the mas­sacre of near­ly 34,000 Jews in Babi Yar, on Sep­tem­ber 29, 2016, he was com­mem­o­rat­ing — at the side of Paru­biy — the vic­tims of the Ger­man war crim­i­nals and their Ukrain­ian col­lab­o­ra­tors.In late May 2017, Paru­biy gave a talk at the spring ses­sion of NATO’s Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly in Tbil­isi, where Ger­man par­lia­men­tar­i­ans were also par­tic­i­pat­ing. When NATO’s Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Jens Stoltenberg addressed the Ukrain­ian Par­lia­ment on July 10, 2017, he dis­cussed with the Maid­an’s for­mer arms sup­pli­er, Ser­hiy Pashyn­sky — and then met with the for­mer Maid­an Com­man­der Paru­biy for a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion. What they talked about is not known.

For more infor­ma­tion in this sub­ject see: Sow­ing Chaos (I).

[1] Ucraina, le ver­ità nascoste. Canale 5, 15.11.2017. Gian Mica­lessin: La ver­sione dei cec­chi­ni sul­la strage di Kiev: “Ordi­ni dal­l’op­po­sizione”. ilgiornale.it 15.11.2017. Ste­fan Korinth: Maid­an­morde: Drei Beteiligte geste­hen. heise.de 19.11.2017.

[2] See also Our Man in Kiev.

[3] See also The Kiev Esca­la­tion Strat­e­gy.

[4] See also From Račak to Maid­an and Sow­ing Chaos (I).

[5] Gabriel Gate­house: The untold sto­ry of the Maid­an mas­sacre. bbc.co.uk 12.02.2015.

[6] Deutsch-ukrainis­che par­la­men­tarische Zusam­me­nar­beit. kas.de 22.05.2016.