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Notes -
Last iteration was about two months ago.
Possibly because a previous case cited brought awkward citations on who might have been responsible.
The previous english-language translation copy link provided no longer works, but Katchavonoski excerpts are here, though I can't promise they are the same translation previously reviewed.
From two months ago on a case, which was a summary for FCfromSSC-
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This is one of the cases which Ivan Katchanovski likes to cite as proving his Euromaidan-culpability false-flag thesis that he's spend his last decade publishing on. His inclination to refer to parts of it is directly correlated to how the contents support his thesis that the government was falsely accused for shooting protestors. For example, Katchanovski likes to gloss over section seven, and particularly the Court's scope exclusions that begin on page 13 noting-
Aka, any action not found guilty in a Ukrainian court of law is excluded from the verdict.
Which, in a steelman, is defensible in the judicial process, but not necessarily in a truth-seeking process where whether something happened as opposed to whether it was proven in a court of law. Particularly when the court of law approach might be complicated by things such as known evidence destruction or defection of key witnesses / perpetrators to a country outside of the court's jurisdiction, like Russia.
As such, Ivan Katchanovski is inclined to ignore, not comment on, or push past the court record's acknowledgement of an unproven-but-not-disproven, but highly relevant claim, of-
I.e., an alleged- but never proven and thus disregarded for this court's purposes- core thesis of the 'government false flag' theory.
Now, Person_376 is not one of the person-descriptors identified in no_one's document. But, in short, the RSP were one of the armed elements in the Maidan Protestors, who were generally in the back / the deterrence for the police to charge and clear the square by force. Their existence / presence is about as old as Euromaidan itself. One of the sniper attacks on the morning of 20 Feb came from a building they had a heavy presence in, which is what this court case is about, which is also old news.
The anti-Euromaidan propaganda narrative is that these RSP key actors were Euromaidan provocateurs / foreign agents (of western powers) who staged in waiting for orders to conduct a false flag attack against Euromaidan protestors to blame the Yanukovych government and escalate the situation, with the intent to bring about the consequence the collapse of Ukrainian government as ended up happening.
The pro-Euromaidan propaganda narrative is that these RSP key actors were Ministry of Interior provacateurs / agents who were staged in waiting for orders to conduct a false flag attack against Euromaidan protestors to blame the protestors and escalate the situation, with the intent of suppressing the protests as part of the broader Ministry of Interior crackdown buildup, but which had the unintended consequence of collapsing the Ukrainian government as ended up happening.
Both pro- and anti-Euromaidan narratives are largely in agreement that the RSP key actors at the center of this case were staged false flag elements waiting for orders to conduct a false flag attack against Euromaidan protestors to escalate the situation, with the consequence of collapsing the Ukrainian government as ended up happening.
The difference is in whose false-flag agents they were, and the intended result of the orders.
The court case doesn't take a position on this distinction, but Ivan Katchanovski likes to insinuate it does, and he is one of the main Reputable Scholars (TM) for the Euromaidan Is To Blame propaganda narrative.
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End report.
And for clarity on the difference in theory intended results. The anti-Euromaidan conspiracy is that the false flag was intended to collapse the government and usher in the pro-Western government as happened IRL, even though that included various other factors beyond the control of western conspirators such as the local party mayor withdrawing city riot police from the conflict area rather than supporting state security. The pro-Euromaidan conspiracy is that the false flag was intended to sow chaos and amongst protestors and help legitimize the otherwise planned lethal force crackdown, which included security force authorization for live fires and other shootings, which was expected to suppress the Euromaidan but instead backfired as happened IRL.
Given that Yanukovych was content to wait out the protests, and did not need the massacre, and given the timeline on the day of the massacre given by Ukrainian themselves first shots around 5 am, then a lop-sided exchange between riot units and the 'snipers' which saw the riot units retreat bc they incurred 2 dead, 20 wounded despite having serious body armor. Mind you, the 'snipers' were not very discriminate, as in, BBC published a video of their crew under fire.
That's a novel claim that the police withdrew because of an order by a .. local city mayor, and not because they were facing a pretty serious gun battle during which they incurred, what, 20 wounded and 10 dead were somehow in the chain of command of Berkut, which was run by the ministry of interior, which, for Americans is the ministry that runs law enforcement, prisons and so on.
I see you're back to ignoring the Yanukovych administrations actual actions in the final days, the external state (Russian) pressures and incentives that were used to drive his changes towards those actions, and claiming as novel the mechanical form in which the Maidan Revolution succeeded, which was that there was a critical lack of elite and and party support for the lethal force crackdown that Yanukovych and the Russian-aligned interior ministry had attempted to initiate.
Unsurprising, and I look forward to your next attempt to claim that perfidy was obvious at play but that it couldn't possibly have been at the behest of the sitting government.
I ask you again, does the initial shootout on that last day that saw 20 wounded riot cops, who mind you, were wearing assault-rifle proof plates vs 10 wounded 'protesters' look like an 'attempted lethal crackdown' or more like unprepared riot cops attacked by a stronger force amply armed with assault rifles and worse. (.308 /7.62x54mm rifles also feature in the testimony iirc).
@Dean seems to have covered everything important, and did a great job doing so, but one last hanging point to not leave any elements unaddressed: How were the police wearing "assault proof plates", why does that even matter, and why do you keep claiming the police were outgunned as a narrative?
It is rare for riot police to wear heavy plates, although some might and I do not see many photos of Berkut in plate carriers or vests at the level 3/4 Russian GOST (that can take a few 7.62 hits before shattering) in the famous photos from the days, it's all soft kevlar stuff so they can move. See for example: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Riot_police_Berkut_on_Euromaidan.jpg .
It's not a central or even relevant point though, why does it even matter what armor people were wearing? Lets say we can prove all Berkut casualties on all days were wearing the thickest plate possible to buy, what changes? We have the deaths 108 for protestors, 12-18 for police - which we all surely agree on, and there was no day where more police died than protestors, often by large margins, which we all presumably also agree on. Something like 50 protestors were shot fatally on that last day (I assume you mean the 20th of Feb?) so far far more died than the police - whatever equipment you give to Berkut/the government none of that changes, this was security forces firing on large numbers of protestors with equipment well below theirs by any narrative, even your own.
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And I see you're still inclined to ignore the Yanukovych administrations actual actions in the final days, as well as @The_Golem101's points on the broader events of that morning, as well as all the other previous exchanges and your own court case documents you used to link to so proudly.
As such I look forward to your next attempt to claim that perfidy was obvious at play but that it couldn't possibly have been at the behest of the sitting government.
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