# Politics and News > World Affairs >  More Ukrainian officers flee to Russia

## The Man

> In a move which was easily to be predicted and averted, a former ex-Berkut officer suspected of direct involvement in the killing of Maidan activists has been allowed to escape justice.  Vitaly Honcharenko was released from custody on April 6 and on April 13 crossed, unimpeded, into Russia, together with three former Kharkiv Berkut colleagues. 
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> The four men – Honcharenko, Oleksandr Kostyuk; Vladislav Masteha and Artem Voilokov - have produced a video, claiming that they were carrying out their ‘constitutional duty’ during Euromaidan, “countering radicals and protecting the life of law-abiding citizens”.  They present their criminal prosecution as some kind of persecution and claim that after the Head of the Special Investigations Department, Serhiy Horbatyuk, publicly stated that the investigators would be complaining about the judges who released Honcharenko, they understood that it was “simply dangerous to remain in Ukraine”.   The video ends with the extraordinary claim that the men now in hiding are willing to prove their innocence in an independent court.  
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> Honcharenko is suspected of killing three people on February 18, 2014, the first of the two bloodiest days of Euromaidan.  He was released from custody under a personal undertaking which the court chose to believe had some meaning.  The April 6 ruling was not subject to appeal.
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> Valentin Rybin, Honcharenko’s lawyer, has told Censor.net that the men did not flee, since they were not under any restraint measure, but merely “moved to a safe place”. 
> ...


Suspected Maidan Killer & Three Other Ex-Berkut Officers Flee to Russia - Human Rights in Ukraine

Their video:



Berkut on Maidan in 2014


They were criticized for extreme brutality towards the protesters, including throwing Molotov cocktails back into the crowds

shooting at them (some protesters had guns too, as I showed in another thread, but don't tell the Maidaners that lol)

and just plain beating people and such. 

After the "revolution", the new regime decided to get rid of Berkut (biggest and most famous special purpose unit of Ukrainian police, btw) entirely, disband them, and put ones accused of crimes during Maidan on trial. 

Well, the Crimean Berkut units (and some personnel from elsewhere in Ukraine who rushed to Crimea to join them, when realized what was happening) simply defected to the Russians when they came, helped the annexation, by blocking off the border with mainland Ukraine

 
They all got Russian passports 

and now form an elite regional branch under the same name within Putin's new Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia)


Meanwhile, in Donetsk and Lugansk, many former Berkut troops joined the rebels

to the point that the separatist governments in Donetsk and Lugansk now have each their own Berkut corps


Some Berkuters, however, DID remain loyal to Ukraine, despite all the crap thrown on them, and even went to fight for Kiev in Donbass, in their uniforms, notwithstanding their, supposed, disbandment 


But, with the Ukrainian government continuing these moronic witch-hunts, where ex-Berkut people have been harassed, threatened, even physically attacked by nationalist scum, as were their relatives; arbitrarily arrested; maligned and defamed in Ukrainian media propaganda; etc; they will lose all who are left. 

And Berkut are among the few Ukraine has who actually know how to fight. Not that they are the only ones who have run. Hundreds of Ukrainian army soldiers and officers have crossed into Russia over the years of the Donbass conflict and asked for asylum. And I am not including wounded ones running from battle and begging for medical help. I am talking able bodied, healthy men, who just didn't want to fight and die for the new government...

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Quark (04-15-2017)

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## Rickity Plumber

Nice piece @The Man .

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The Man (04-15-2017)

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## Quark

I've never have been able to figure out why protestors and rioters figure they can burn, kill, and destroy with impunity. Somehow their cause is so worthy that police and military should just let them do it. And I say BS.

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The Man (04-15-2017)

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## The Man

> I've never have been able to figure out why protestors and rioters figure they can burn, kill, and destroy with impunity. Somehow their cause is so worthy that police and military should just let them do it. And I say BS.


This is what Berkut and others faced in Kiev





Peaceful students, according to Western media lol 

Dozens of members of law enforcement were killed there

including no less than 14 Berkut guys


Plenty were from Crimea, btw. It was, also, that, the anger about numerous Crimean boys being killed there, in Kiev, while defending law and order

that first really drove people there out in the streets, and into the arms of pro-Russian separatists. Crimeans began to hate Kiev, as did people in Donbass. As do plenty, still, underground, in other Eastern regions, where also many of slain police and Berkut members came from.
And it drove tens of thousands of former Ukrainian police, not just Berkut, into rebel militias in Donbass


Berkut, btw, are highly skilled operators, with unique experience, having participated in UN peacekeeping operations for Ukraine all over the world


Berkut in Kosovo

That's just one example. 

Hell of a unit...

They are definitely a great prize for Russia, together with Crimea  :Big Grin:

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Big Dummy (04-15-2017),Quark (04-15-2017),Rickity Plumber (04-15-2017)

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## Roadmaster

We should have allowed the people to vote instead of putting someone they didn't vote for in office. We wouldn't want some other country coming to the US and pulling Trump out for who they like.

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The Man (04-15-2017)

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## The Man

> We should have allowed the people to vote instead of putting someone they didn't vote for in office. We wouldn't want some other country coming to the US and pulling Trump out for who they like.


Agreed  :Smile:  Maidan was a coup sponsored by US NGOs:




> USAID says it has spent $1.9-billion (U.S.) in Ukraine since 1992.  Figures for 2015 suggest that nearly a fifth of that money ($21-million  of a total $116-million spent in Ukraine that year) went to went to  democracy and governance projects.
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>  The long-term  effects of that soft-power outlay were made plain in a pair of  revolutions  in 2004 and 2014  that saw Ukrainians rise up to  overthrow governments seen as too deferential to Moscow. Western-funded  non-governmental organizations played key roles mobilizing the  population during both revolts.


âAmerica First,â from Ukraine to Africa: How Trumpism threatensÂ*democracy - The Globe and Mail

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Roadmaster (04-15-2017)

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