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Foreign Involvement in February 2014 Maidan Terrorist Sniper Attack

by Gordon M. Hahn

It needs to be acknowledged that, yes, as some claimed there was foreign involvement in the 20 February 2014 terrorist sniper attacks on Ukraine’s Maidan that killed some 47, wounded more, and sparked the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. However, according to information from an Italian documentary film (www.occhidellaguerra.it/ucraina-le-verita-nascoste-parlano-cecchini-maidan/) and published on Facebook by the world’s leading expert on the Maidan sniper attack, Ottawa University Professor Ivan Katchanovski, it appears not to have been a group managed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s advisor, Vyacheslav Surkov, or a Russian ‘wet team’ as claimed by US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. Rather, it included both Lithuanian and Georgian snipers recruited by Mamuka Mamushvili, a Georgian military advisor to former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Washington’s ‘beacon of democracy’ in Eurasia, and an American military operative, Brian Christopher Boyenger, formerly of the famous 101st Airborne Division, based in Fort Campbell, Tennessee (www.facebook.com/ivan.katchanovski/posts/1805064986190046). Mamuka Mumashvili organized and fought with the Georgian National Legion, which included according to one FB post I show below, “three retired US officers.” One of the Georgian snipers allegedly recruited by Mamulashvili and Boyenger was a member of Saakashvili’s body guard detail at the time. [*]

[ AS OF 2O NOVEMBER AN ENGLISH VERSION OF THE ITALIAN DOCUMENTARY BECAME AVAILABLE, SEE PART ONE AT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR1NFI6TBH0 – SEE PART TWO AT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0rR2Fh1zWI ]

http://www.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DwR1NFI6TBH0&h=ATOjkh1ljzfas3ttROMgo9tyXqgBH3XND60EjlL1X7xmAI1ldwIbynllyK8kY_3Toqqakk84GP7llonmKv625T-mF5Ag_C5YHsKxBXuTZTA654vjHfTxixR18C2qdutpTvrCs-dF5aZhelA%5D

The following is a Google translation provided by Prof. Katchanovski of the transcript of the bombshell Italian documentary which contains the confessions of purported Georgian snipers and describes Boyenger and Mamulashvili:

Who has massacred over eighty of demonstrators and cops gathered at Maidan Nezalezhnosti ,Kiev Independence Square heart and symbol – up to that fateful February 20, 2014 – of the events in favor of the Association Agreement with the European Union ? The anti-Russian opposition made government after the Russian leader’s retreat Viktor Yanukovych has always pointed his finger at the special forces of the deposed president accusing them of sending a team of snipers to shoot the demonstrators to drown the protest in a blood bath. Already then, however, many raised doubts and perplexities.
The first to contest that version was Foreign Minister Urmas Paet. Returning from a trip to Kiev only 5 days after the massacre reported in a phone call to EU Commissioner for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton, revelations from a Ukrainian doctor who examined the cadavers of Piazza Maidan. The intercepted phone call spread by the Russian media is disconcerting.
“The most disturbing thing – Paet explains – is that all the evidence shows that people killed by snipers – both the cops and people in the street – were killed by the same snipers …” Faced with the perplexity of a visibly embarrassed Ashton, the minister cites the testimony of the Ukrainian doctor. “She speaks as a doctor says it is the same signature, of the same kind of bullets. It is really disturbing that now the new coalition – Paet reaffirms – refuses to investigate what is really going on. There is a very strong conviction that there are behind the snipers …. That there is no Yanukovych, but some of the new coalition … “.
At four years from the beginning of November 2013 of Maidan’s demonstrations we are able to describe another truth, completely different from the official one. Our story begins towards the end of summer 2017 in Skopye, the capital of Macedonia. There after long and complex preliminaries we meet Koba Nergadze and Kvarateskelia Zalogy two Georgian protagonists and witnesses of that tragic shootout and subsequent massacre.
Both Nergadze and Zalogy are linked to former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili , who starring in August 2008 of a short but bloody war with Russia’s Vladimir Putin . Nergadze, as evidenced by an identification card he holds, was a member of a security service at the president’s orders. Zalogy is a former Saakashvili party activist. “I decided to come to Skopije to tell you everything we know about what happened … and I and my friend have decided together, we need to shed some light on those facts,” Nergadze says. The same will say Alexander Revazishvilli a few months later, a former target shooter of the Georgian army starred in the Maidan shootout, met in another Eastern European country. All three of our protagonists say that they were recruited at the end of 2013 by Mamuka Mamulashvili , a Saakashvili military advisor who after Maidan’s facts will move to the Donbass to lead the so-called Georgian Legion in clashes with Russian wire insurgents. “The first meeting was with Mamulashvili at the office of the National Movement,” Zalogy said. “The Ukrainian uprising in 2013 was similar to the” Pink Revolution “that took place in Georgia years before. We had to direct and guide it using the same pattern used for the “Pink Revolution”.
Alexander’s version is no different. “Mamuka first asked me if I was really a chosen shooter – Alexander remembers – he immediately told me he needed me in Kiev to pick some places.” Our protagonists, aggregated to various groups of volunteers between November 2013 and January 2014, receive passports with false names and money advances. “We left on January 15 and on the plane – Zalogy remembers – I received my passport and another with my photo but with different names and surnames. Then they gave us a thousand dollars to the head promising to give it another five thousand more there. “
Once in Kiev, our three protagonists begin to understand better why they were recruited. “Our task – Alexandere explains – was to arrange provocations to push the police to charge the crowd. Until the middle of February, however, there were not many weapons around. The molotovs, the shields and the sticks were used to the maximum. ” But in mid-February, clashes around Maidan begin to get worse. “About 15 and 16 February,” Nergadze remembers, “the situation has begun to become more serious every day. He was out of control now. And in the meantime, the first shoots were heard. “With the rise of tension new players come into play
“One day around February 15 – remembers Alexander – Mamualashvili personally visited our tent. There was another guy in his uniform with him. He introduced him and told us he was an instructor, an American soldier . ” The US military is called Brian Christopher Boyenger and is a former officer and shooter of the 101st Airborne Division. After Maidan moves on the Donbass front, where he will fight in the ranks of the Georgian Legion alongside Mamulashvili.
“We were always in touch with this Bryan – Nergadze explains – he was a Mamulashvili man. It was he who gave us the orders. I had to follow all his instructions. “
The first suspects on the presence of firearms among the ranks of demonstrators involve Serghey Pashinsky, a leader of Maidan Square, who became, after the fall of Yanukovych, chairman of the Kiev parliament. On February 18 – as a movie shot that day – a car rifle locked by a car shot by a demonstrator shows a machine gun. Few seconds after Pashinsky approaches and orders to let her go. The next day a handful of weapons were distributed to groups of Georgian and Lithuanian militants residing in Hotel Ukraine, the hotel overlooking the square used as a headquarters by opposition
“In those days, Pashinsky and three other people – including Parasyuk – have taken the weapons handbags to the hotel. They were going to get them into my room,” Nergadze says. Volodymyr Parasyuk is one of the leaders of the Maidan Square protest. After the massacre of demonstrators, he will become famous for an ultimatum in which he will threaten to use weapons to chase President Viktor Yanukovych.
“On February 18 – remembers Zalogy – someone took some weapons in my room. In the room with me there were two Lithuanians, the weapons were taken by them. ” “In each bag – remembers Nergadze – there were Makarov’s pistols, Akm carburetors, carbines. And then there were packets of cartridges. When I first saw them I did not understand …. When Mamulashvili arrived, I also asked him. “What’s going on,” I told him, “what are these weapons? Is everything all right? “Koba things are getting complicated, we have to start shooting,” he replied, “we can not go to the pre-election presidential elections …” “But to whom should we shoot? And where? “I asked him.” He replied that where he did not care, he had to shoot somewhere … so much to sow some chaos. “
While Nergadze and Zalogy assist in arms distribution at the hotel Alexander Revazishvilli and other volunteers reach the Conservatory, another palace overlooking the square. “It will be February 16th … Pashinsky ordered us to collect our belongings and bring us in … .There came other people, they were almost all masked. From the purses I understood … they carried weapons …. They pulled them out and handed them over to the various groups. Only Pashinsky was talking … “He was giving orders. He asked me where we were supposed to shoot. ” “In the meantime – explains Nergadze – even at the Ukraine hotel, the leaders of the revolt underline the hypothesis of using the weapons. ” They explained to us to shoot to create chaos and confusion. We did not have to stop. It did not matter if we fired at a tree, a barricade, or the molotov. The important thing was to sow the chaos. ” On the 20th morning the weapons come into action. “It was supposed to be dawn,” Zalogy remembers, “when I heard the sound of the shootings … they were not bursts, they were single strokes … came from the next room. At that same time, the Lithuanians opened the window. One of them fired one shot while the other closed the window. They have fired three or four times everywhere. ” Alexander, admitting he was involved in the shootout from the Conservatory building, claims to have understood very little. “Everyone started shooting two or three shots at a time. We did not have much choice. We were ordered to shoot both the Berkut, the police, and the demonstrators, no matter what. I was totally outraged. It went on for fifteen minutes … maybe twenty. I was out of my mind, agitated, under stress, I did not understand anything. Then suddenly after 15, 20 minutes the shootings have ceased and everyone has put down the weapons. ” As wounded and dead arrive in the Ukrainian Hotel Salon the snipers flee from the rooms. And so the victims find themselves next to their assassins. “Inside,” remembers Nergadze, “there was the chaos, you did not understand who they were and the others. People ran back and forth. Someone was hurt … someone was armed. Outside was even worse. There were so many injured in the streets. And they’re all dead. ” Alexander says he has gone in a hurry. “Someone was shouting that there were snipers, I knew what they were talking about,” she said, “my only thought was to disappear before they knew about me. Otherwise, they cracked me. At that time, however, I did not realize – I understand – I understand. We’ve been used. Used and stuck .” (Ucraina, le verità nascoste Parlano i cecchini di Maidan – Gli occhi della guerra
Chi ha massacrato oltre ottanta fra dimostranti e poliziotti riuniti a Maidan Nezalezhnosti, la Piazza dell’indipendenza di Kiev cuore e simbolo – fino a quel…”, 16 November 2017, http://www.occhidellaguerra.it/ucraina-le-verita-nascoste-…/).
 

Prof. Katchanovski assesses the information in the Italian documentary as follows: “The information given by them appears to be generally consistent with various publicly available evidence that I examined in my studies and that was revealed at the Maidan massacre trial. This includes locations of many of the snipers in the Hotel Ukraina and the Music Conservatory, exact calibers of firearms used to massacre protesters, the involvement of the Right Sector-linked special Maidan armed company under Parasiuk’s command, and a well known video of a Maidan leader who was filmed evacuating a Maidan protester with a rifle. But my study is concerned with the research question as to which side of the conflict was involved in the massacre and not with involvement of specific persons and with identities of specific snipers and massacre organizers. Experts, government investigations, and journalists in the West, Ukraine, and Georgia can verify the identities of these people and the government document id shown by one of them” (www.facebook.com/ivan.katchanovski/posts/1805064986190046).

Georgia Today published a full-length feature article on Mamulashvili and Boyenger on 26 February 2016: http://georgiatoday.ge/news/3112/American-Ex-Paratrooper-Joins-Georgian-Legion-Fighting-in-Ukraine

US soldier Boylenger appeared in videos and photographs while in Ukraine that were posted on FB. A FB search <

 

An Orthodox priest blesses a volunteer battalion of the Georgian National Legion including three retired US officers, Brian Christopher Boyenger of…

The link above gives you a photograph of three “retired US officers, Brian Christopher, boyenger, David Kleman, and Quinn Rickertt,” who were fighting with the Georgian legion during the Donbass civil war:
 
 
See more
 
'An Orthodox priest blesses a volunteer battalion of the Georgian National Legion including three retired US officers, Brian Christopher Boyenger of North Carolina, right, David Kleman of Texas, second right, and Quinn Rickertt of Illinois, third right, prior to their departure to the area of the war conflict in Ukraine's east, in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 15, 2016. The Georgian National Legion consists mostly of Georgians, but there are also the US, French and Belgian citizens. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)'
 
David Kleman seems to be the soldier strolling through a war-ridden area at the 00:24 mark in the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDlX5SSAO0M. He is seen in the same footage at the 12:33 mark in a video that appeared in numerous places but is embedded in a video that can be accessed at the following: http://www.brighteon.com/f54f59f0-58a3-4ffc-831f-a007846d3379.
 
On 15 March 2016 Mamuka Mamulashvili posted a link to a http://www.msn.com article on Boyenger and the Georgian National Legion (https://www.facebook.com/MamukaLegion/posts/10209349755207359), bu the MSN article is no longer at the linked URL (http://www.msn.com/…/an-orthodox-priest-blesses-…/ar-BBquvyh).
 
 
A public records search for Boyenger reveals that he was in the Washington DC area of Fairfax County, Virginia in December 2015 (http://atlaspublicrecords.com/name/brian-c-boyenger/hermitage-tn/22f505ec0c).
 
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*For more on the 20 February 2014 Maidan neofascists’ snipers massacre see Katchanovski’s work as well as:

Gordon M. HahnUKRAINE OVER THE EDGE: Russia, the West and the “New Cold War”, forthcoming from McFarland Books in December 2017.

Gordon M. Hahn, WORKING PAPER: “The Real Snipers’ Massacre, February 2014, Revised and Updated,” Gordonhahn.com Russian and Eurasian Politics, 9 March 2016, https://gordonhahn.com/2016/03/09/the-real-snipers-massacre-ukraine-february-2014-updatedrevised-working-paper/.

 

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About the Author – Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group, San Jose, California, www.cetisresearch.org; an expert analyst at Corr Analytics, www.canalyt.com; and an analyst at Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation (Chicago), www.geostrategicforecasting.com.

Dr. Hahn is the author of the forthcoming book from McFarland Publishers Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the ‘New Cold War. Previously, and three well-received published books: Russia’s Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction Publishers, 2002);  Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007); and The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland Publishers, 2014). He has published numerous think tank reports, academic articles, analyses, and commentaries in both English and Russian language media and has served as a consultant and provided expert testimony to the U.S. government.

Dr. Hahn also has taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia. He has been a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Kennan Institute in Washington DC as well as the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

 

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