THE EVENTS OF TONIGHT : There was a blockade of “Berkut’s” buses on Victory Avenue near the Kiev-Swjatoschyn  Police District building, which was organized by AutoMaidan after the “Berkut” riot police brutally beat demonstrators in front of the Kiev-Swjatoschyn district court .

Video from hospital where injured people came.

1:10 Hromadske.tv Bogdan Kutjepow : about 200 cars of AvtoMaidan activists blocked 2 buses of “Berkut” officers, who had beat people in Kiev-Swjatoschyn court. When people wanted to take pictures of the soldiers, they were wearing face-covering [ski] masks.

Yuriy Lutsenko , the former Minister of Internal Affairs [under Tymoshenko & Yanukovich] of Ukraine, who went to talk to the Berkut command as a deputy to resolve the situation, asked for the soldiers in the bus to show their identity cards. Berkut special riot police wear no personal identifiers on their uniforms. He was then beaten to the ground. His wife, Irina Lutsenko, members of parliament, who, according to an eyewitness, tried to help Yuriy, was also struck (this sequence of events was sent by VicheKyiv online translation). A little later, Yuriy Lutsenko was taken to hospital in an ambulance. He was regaining consciousness, but has serious head injuries.

Irina Lutsenko (according to #ЄвроМайдан)  reported from the hospital: that Yuriy Lutsenko’s injuries, from the computed tomography are: a closed skull-brain trauma, multiple hematomas, concussion and an open scalp wound that required stitches. The Former Minister of the Interior was given received 8 baton strikes to the head from Berkut soldiers tonight.

Video surveillance of the Berkut-blockade, at about 00:50 on Victory Avenue. On the right is the flashing column of the protesters with blocked buses. The column can be seen along the entire length of the photo. It also includes  cars of supporters .

After negotiations with protesters, a team of soldiers from one bus, without their face-covering masks, were let out through a corridor created by the protesters, the other group of Berkut police tried to go through with their masks on, which caused additional anger from the people. This was contrary to the agreement made, so  people immediately blocked their passage. Meanwhile,  the column of protesters’  cars continued to grow. More people from Kiev continued to arrive, after the social network calls to Kiev to come for reinforcement. Bogdan Kutjepow estimated the number of protesters to be a couple of thousand. Then the team of police from the other bus came out – without masks.

People wanted to film and take pictures of their faces [since there are no other identifiers]. With a mask they would not let them pass. The people made a narrow “passage of shame” through which the Berkut soldiers had to pass  to get to the building of the district police. The soldiers had to show their face to get to the building. Bogdan Kutjepow, as a journalist, was allowed to remain in the yard of the Court (though he was “advised” to leave the territory). He said that the soldiers were very nervous: the “passage of shame” had deeply impressed them.

In reality, according to Євромайдан SOS, the conflict situation was solved only thanks to the brigade of Maidan self-defense forces, that came to support. They are the guys who organized this passage through a corridor as a resolution. And provocative agents who were there, radicals, and, simply stated, idiots who constantly repeated “Beat the cops , take the weapons” had no success.

To everyone from the Maidan – self-defense crew – a big thanks to you !

The requests were as follows:
• the Berkut soldiers who previously beat people near the District Court must be identified.
• And, even more difficult, they must be held accountable.