Here is the foundational article for this smear campaign, from last Friday’s WaPo, then follow the usual exposures, that the man quoted is a paid stooge of USAID, etc – RB
Russia, Ukraine feud over sniper carnage
AP, Mar 7 2014
KIEV, Ukraine — One of the biggest mysteries hanging over the protest mayhem that drove Ukraine’s president from power: Who was behind the snipers who sowed death and terror in Kiev? That riddle has become the latest flashpoint of feuding over Ukrain,— with the nation’s fledgling government and the Kremlin giving starkly different interpretations of events that could either undermine or bolster the legitimacy of the new rulers. Ukrainian authorities are investigating the Feb 18-20 bloodbath, and they have shifted their focus from ousted Pres Yanukovych’s government to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, pursuing the theory that the Kremlin was intent on sowing mayhem as a pretext for military incursion. Russia suggests that the snipers were organized by opposition leaders trying to whip up local and international outrage against the government. The government’s new health minister, a doctor who helped oversee medical treatment for casualties during the protests, told AP that the similarity of bullet wounds suffered by opposition victims and police indicates the shooters were trying to stoke tensions on both sides and spark even greater violence, with the goal of toppling Yanukovych. Health Minister Oleh Musiy said:
I think it wasn’t just a part of the old regime that did it, but it was also the work of Russian special forces who served and maintained the ideology of the regime.
Putin has pushed the idea that the sniper shootings were ordered by opposition leaders, while Kremlin officials have pointed to a recording of a leaked phone call between Estonia’s foreign minister and the EU’s foreign policy chief as evidence to back up that version. This much is known: Snipers firing powerful rifles from rooftops and windows shot scores of people in the heart of Kiev. Some victims were opposition protesters, but many were civilian bystanders clearly not involved in the clashes. Among the dead were medics, as well as police officers. A majority of the more than 100 people who died in the violence were shot by snipers; hundreds were also injured by the gunfire and other street fighting. On Tuesday, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov signaled that investigators may be turning their attention away from Ukrainian responsibility. Avakov was quoted as saying by Interfax:
I can say only one thing: the key factor in this uprising, that spilled blood in Kiev and that turned the country upside down and shocked it, was a third force. And this force was not Ukrainian.
The next day, Prosecutor General Oleh Makhntisky said officials have found sniper bullet casings on the National Bank building a few hundred yards up the hill from Maidan, the square that became the center and the symbol of the anti-government protests. He said investigators have confirmed snipers also fired from the Hotel Ukraine, directly on the square, and the House of Chimeras, an official residence next to the presidential administration building. Deputy Interior Minister Mykola Velichkovych told AP that commanders of sniper units overseen by the Berkut police force and other Interior Ministry subdivisions have denied to investigators that they had given orders to shoot anyone. Musiy, who spent more than two months organizing medical units on Maidan, said that on Feb 20 roughly 40 civilians and protesters were brought with fatal bullet wounds to the makeshift hospital set up near the square. But he said medics also treated three police officers whose wounds were identical. Forensic evidence, in particular the similarity of the bullet wounds, led him and others to conclude that snipers were targeting both sides of the standoff at Maidan, and that the shootings were intended to generate a wave of revulsion so strong that it would topple Yanukovych and also justify a Russian invasion. Russia has used the uncertainty surrounding the bloodshed to discredit Ukraine’s current government. During a news conference Tuesday, Putin addressed the issue in response to a reporter’s question, saying:
The snipers in fact may have been provocateurs from opposition parties.
That theory gained currency a day later when a recording of a Feb 26 private phone call between Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton was leaked and broadcast by the Russian government-controlled TV network, Russia Today. In the call, Paet said he had heard from protesters during a visit to Kiev that opponents of Yanukovych were behind the sniper attacks. Paet said another physician who treated victims, Dr Olha Bogomolets, told him that both police and protesters were killed by the same bullets. He concluded:
There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind snipers it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.
On Wednesday Paet confirmed the recording was authentic, and told reporters in Tallinn that he was merely repeating what Bogomolets had told him. He said he had no way of verifying the claims, though he called Bogomolets “clearly a person with authority.” Bogomolets couldn’t be immediately reached by the AP for comment. She did not answer repeated calls to her cellphone or respond to text messages. In an interview earlier this week with a correspondent from the UK Telegraph, Bogomolets said she didn’t know if police and protesters were killed by the same bullets, and called for a thorough investigation. She was quoted as saying:
No one who just sees the wounds when treating the victims can make a determination about the type of weapons. I hope international experts and Ukrainian investigators will make a determination of what type of weapons, who was involved in the killings and how it was done. I have no data to prove anything.
On Thursday, Russia’s UN envoy said he discussed the leaked phone call during a closed-door meeting of the UNSC. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters:
If the call represents the truth, it is hard to imagine how such a parliament can be regarded as a legitimate parliament that can pass legitimate decisions on the future of Ukraine.
A former top security official with Ukraine’s main security agency, the SBU, waded into the confusion in an interview published Thursday with the respected newspaper Dzerkalo Tizhnya. Hennady Moskal, who was deputy head of the agency, told the newspaper that snipers from the Interior Ministry and SBU were responsible for the shootings, not foreign agents. He was quoted as saying:
In addition to this, snipers received orders to shoot not only protesters, but also police forces. This was all done in order to escalate the conflict, in order to justify the police operation to clear Maidan.
One of the victims of the snipers was Alexander Tonskikh, 57. He told AP that at around 10 am on Feb 20, he and dozens of opposition fighters moved south out of the main battleground on Maidan. Riot police withdrew suddenly, he said, and an instant later snipers began firing from at least two different directions, from what seemed to be the rooftops of government buildings, between 200 and 300 yards away. He said dozens of people were “mown down like grass” as he and others crouched behind a waist-high stone wall, holding wooden clubs and metal riot shields. At least 10 people, he said, were killed instantly, and many others wounded. The bodies piled up on top of each other like fallen tree branches. Shooting then began from a third direction, he said. As he crouched with his back to a tree, he was hit by a bullet that entered his right arm, went through his right side, punctured his lung and lodged just below his heart. He then lost consciousness.
Now, the exposure:
Chesno (Honestly) – USAID
Oui, EuroTrib.com, Mar 7 2014
Publication in Дзеркало Tizhnya: Hennadii Moskal is an MP from the Fatherland party (the party of the MP caught with sniper rifle in car). He claimed on Jan 16 2014 that Berkut forces from Crimea were responsible for escalation of violence on Nov 30 2013 under orders from police chief Oleg Marynenko. On Feb 26 2014, Moskal reveals a list of SBU tactics prepared for Maidan revolt. On Feb 27 2014, Moskal states Crimea insurgents are well-trained Berkut who were discharged by new parliament, seeks urgency. On Mar 7 2014, SBU chief Nalyvaychenko and Interior Minister Avakov say snipers represented a third force. This claim is rejected by Moskal as an SBI whitewash of its agents.
I’m not at all surprised. Chesno is a USAID-funded NGO with previous funding by Omidyar:
According to the leaked papers, a network of interlocking NGOs, including Chesno (Honestly), Center UA and Stop Censorship to name a few, were growing in influence in Ukraine by targeting pro-Yanukovych politicians with a well-coordinated anti-corruption campaign that built its strength in Ukraine’s regions, before massing in Kiev last autumn. The fundraising papers show that from Oct 2011 to Dec 2012, USAID provided Chesno with a hefty sum of over $421k, while also planting nine of Center UA experts on its staff whose duty it was to manage the NGO’s affairs on the regional level, coordinate its efforts, provide photo and video coverage, as well as creative input.
These NGO links were covered in the Pando article (below – RB) and my earlier diaries.
USAID involved in getting Ukraine coup up and running
Voice of Russia, Mar 4 2014
The US online whistleblower magazine Pando has leaked documents suggesting the US government, in the form of USAID, could have played a role as force multiplier in the overthrow of Ukraine’s Pres Yanukovych, having funded a host of opposition groups prior to the revolution. Pando published financial documents showing numerous funding entries for NGO activities across Ukraine, including in Poltava, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Ternopil, Sumy, and elsewhere, mostly in the Ukrainian-speaking west and center. The list also names US-based contributors such as billionaire George Soros, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his Omidyar Network foundation, as well as the National Endowment for Democracy, which is funded largely by the US Congress. According to the leaked papers, a network of interlocking NGOs, including Chesno (Honestly), Center UA and Stop Censorship to name a few, were growing in influence in Ukraine by targeting pro-Yanukovych politicians with a well-coordinated anti-corruption campaign that built its strength in Ukraine’s regions, before massing in Kiev last autumn. The fundraising papers show that from Oct 2011 to Dec 2012, USAID provided Chesno with a hefty sum of over $421k, while also planting nine of Center UA experts on its staff whose duty it was to manage the NGO’s affairs on the regional level, coordinate its efforts, provide photo and video coverage, as well as creative input. Hence, it may well be that the activities of Chesno, which bills itself as a civil watchdog movement bent on “filtering the power”, received a large percentage of funds from US taxpayers under the watchful eye of USAID. Chesno was set up on Oct 29 2011 as part of the “Let’s Filter the Parliament in 24 hours” campaign, which happened just as the Ukrainian opposition was discussing a unified structure in a bid to consolidate its efforts. Its public face was Oleg Rybachuk, a prominent politician in the country and the right-hand man to Orange Revolution figurehead Viktor Yushchenko. It was reported earlier that the Maidan unrest in the late 2013 drew large numbers of western foreigners in Ukraine’s capital Kiev, including the so-called “mercenaries” from the US, Germany and Poland. One of the participants, who identified himself as Vladimir, confessed:
There weren’t many Russians there, compared to some 60 people from the US, around 30 and up to 50 Germans, as well as Poles, Turks and many others.
The heavily fortified Maidan camp in Kiev’s Independence Square was the flashpoint of the anti-Yanukovych uprising. It attracted some of the most prominent, if not exactly controversial, public people from the West. Among them were US Republican Senators John McCain and Ryan Murphy. McCain promised protesters the support of the US and quoted the 19th-century Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko in his podium speech. Another Maidan guest was US Asst Sec State Victoria Nuland, hand in hand with the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. The US couple met with top insurgents and gave out cookies to the hungering crowd.
Niqnaq 