Yulia Smirnova
19.02.2014 5:00 Facebook status update
All texts translated by Anna Danilova
Source

A spare moment.
Briefly.
Firemen are putting out the fire at the House of Trade Unions, but the building is still burning.
Everybody says that it was set on fire on purpose.
Tolia, my acquaintance, fell out of the 5th floor, because everything was burning. I met him next to an ambulance, he worried that his friend, who had seriously fallen, would be taken to a hospital.
But there is also a group of girls and women, who took the lightly wounded from doctors to private clinics. Or to the church, where there are doctors. The heavily wounded were taken by ambulance to a hospital :(… I don’t know what will happen to them further.
Having pulled out several bodies from the front line (one of them was dead, according to doctors, others are alive), I couldn’t manage to help the doctors anymore, because I was frightened. Yes, I was simply frightened by blood, death… :((( .. in short, I’m a wimp.
That’s why I went to load paving blocks into sacks, to help the guys.
Police, or internal troops, or Berkut, shine a projector at us, and then shoot… to blind them we’ve started to burn down clothes, rubbish, wood…
That’s why we need rubbish, building materials, everything you have. Take it to the battlefield – to Maidan.
I never thought Maidan would be on fire.

Yulia Smirnova
19.02.2014 5:00 Facebook status update
Source

What amazed:

Courage. A man in his 60’s, whose face is bloodied and who is being treated by medics, is yelling: faster, the children are dying over there, I’d rather it be me.
Women, who are carrying wood, paving blocks, clothing in their hands, who hollowed the paving blocks by themselves, to help men who are on the front line.
A granny who was giving 50 hryvnas [around $6] to me and crying that there’s nothing more she can help with. Everybody was sending her home, but she wouldn’t listen. They left her to gather paving blocks.
But most of all Tolia, who fell out of the 5th floor, could hardly walk to the medics, but was dragging his wounded friend on himself.
This is war. Everybody keeps repeating this. But what kind of war is that? They have weapons, they shoot, and we are empty-handed.
But there is a postive thing as well, people become very kind.

Myroslav Hanushchak
19.02.2014 1:00 Facebook status update
Source

We came to the barricades from the side of the police in European Square. There is a whole lot of buses with tinted glass and without plate numbers. There are many people armed with Kalashnikovs among them. We talked to firemen, there are many of them as well, they say that police have “cleaned out” all the products from the food kiosks. This, so that you understand what looting and marauding is.

Yuriy Butusov
19.02.2014 3:00 Facebook status update
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I’ve just returned from Maidan – I was taking medicines, water, food there. We managed to drive through without any problems from the side of  Velyka Vasylkivska [formerly Chervonoarmiyska] Street, through Leo Tolstoy Square. There are some traffic policemen, but they don’t stop anyone. We drove straight to the barricades. It’s crowded there, at Khreshchatyk Street, like on Sundays. People are driving back and forth, shop windows are on fire, it’s light, everything can be seen.

Around 15-20 thousands people are constantly staying on Maidan.
Mainly, men.

Kyivans are delivering medicines, food. And they stay there. Military organization is not so noticeable now – obviously, Self-Defence units suffered heavy losses. But in the rear corner of Maidan, at the intersection with Prorizna Street, crowds of volunteers keep guarding the perimeter. Many men are unarmed and without helmets. When you get into this society, you stop feeling fear at once. People are geared up peacefully, but they won’t leave the place. The heart aches when you see people, who are being crushed by tanks and shot at with buckshots from rifles, break out the paving tiles – their only weapon. As survivors still keep pulling tires to the front line, where the snipers are firing to kill and grenades are constantly being blown up. Women in sheepskin coats and high-heeled boots are carrying stones. People with weapons still cannot be noticed at Maidan. Mostly protesters are Kyivans, many intellectuals.

I am proud of my people.

http://vimeo.com/87047350

Dasha Litvinova
19.02.2014 13:00 Facebook status update
Source

A wonderful guy was killed this night. A true man! His name was
Vladimir Stanislavovich Kulchitskii.

He was my father-in-law. People, remember this name!
He died for you and for me. For our future!
We are extremely proud and admire him!
He was afraid, but he was at the forefront throughout the whole night.
He got shot in the heart. With a lead bullet.
Please mourn him, and those who died today!
Don’t let their lives be lost in vain!

Dear Stanislavovich, we love you very much!

Dasha Litvinova
19.02.2014 1:00 Facebook status update
Source

I knew WHERE I am going , WHY I am going there and what will HAPPEN. In fact, last night in the studio I internally said goodbye to everyone and “closed” all the misunderstandings and condemnation. This is a Berkut grenade. It hit me in the back when the offensive began. I was almost the last – I was leading a 75-year-old granny out of Instytutska Street.

I was wearing a solid canvas backpack with all the defensive stuff and padding for my back.
The right shoulder strap and burnt bottom are the only remnants of it. If I didn’t have the backpack, I wouldn’t have survive.

Later, covering and holding that granny, whose height was to my nose, I just stood near the wall, then under a small fir at the pavement and I was watching Berkut running by and… HOW they were beating everybody they could reach! Men, women, Red Cross, Press. Several times they raised batons on us and yelled “I’ll kill you, bitch” at my face, but I was just calmly looking straight in their eyes and somehow they lowered the batons… Then one Berkut with human eyes took me and granny to the closest back street defending us with his shield. Around 30 people were already there: around 13 women, 6-7 men – a grandad, a boy of around 17, Press and 4 middle-aged men. The grandad lay on the ground, with 2 Berkut members smashing him with their batons. Two more men were completely soaked in blood from the wounds in their heads. The women had injuries of varying severity – a girl from Red Cross was severely beaten in her leg (thigh), a girl from the press had her head broken open and her knee knocked-out. And so on. And here I am, all “shiny.” Though I didn’t know at the time what was behind me.

A few minutes later Berkut flew away for further “hunting,” leaving us with one fractured skull and 3 concussions. A sea of blood, I do not exaggerate. Plus leg injuries, broken fingers (after covering their heads). Thank God, the other girl from the Red Cross had her medical case with medicine. We bandaged those who were bleeding, made several shots and hid in the building entrance. 16 people in total. I called my friend telling him where we were and asking for urgent help, the guys from the Press were calling theirs. Finally, the info was dropped on VK [their version of FB], and the Red Cross from Maidan arrived for us. And Sergey somehow managed to drive his way right down Shovkovychna Street. To the minute.

Everybody was helped out. Sergey “led” an ambulance with the heavily wounded through “secret passes” to the House of Trade Unions at Maidan, and then took me home.

TOTAL. The most important experience of today.

It’s terrifying – HOW people are beaten. It’s one thing when it is shown on TV news. And another – when you see it in front of your eyes. And the eyes of those who beat…

By the way, in the morning my friend Sasha personally delivered two wounded Berkut members to a hospital, while the third one was released behind a barricade. NOBODY BEAT THEM!!! And it’s fine, and mine personally. From the beginning until now – a perfect balance. THE STATE. I haven’t lost a single moment. After the events of January 22, when I had emotional shock, and further, when I had doubts about the strength of Love, and as a response I’ve been let feel for a moment what the “Love of Christ” is, a whole life passed by for me. I died and was re-born. In love. Today, looking around, I haven’t felt fear, agression, hatred, despair, accusation for a moment.

That’s all for the Practical Lessons…

ЄвроМайдан – EuroMaydan
19.02.2014 10:00 Facebook status update
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Russian war correspondent Arkadii Babchenko gave his impressions about the events of the night of February 18-19 on EuroMaidan:

“With the exception of Chechnya, this was probably the most difficult night of my life. Never before have I been given so hard an assignment. During the night there were about ten attacks, I think. No, more, perhaps. And they were chipping away all the time. Every 15 minutes there was an explosion. I saw one person killed with my own eyes, and many tens wounded.

All attacks were repulsed. They repulsed them at the last moment: people ran – they really ran – but there remained a little thread of people, some ten or twenty or thirty people who did not run and stood and fought with the “Berkut.” And those running and trembling came back and fought, and “Berkut” retreated.

How these people were able to tolerate all this, I do not understand. I could not endure fifteen to twenty stun grenades exploding at nearly the same time. I had to leave and wait until the nausea and headache subsided and my hearing returned back to normal. But these people stood through it. The police had judged their range well, and started hitting the protesters directly on their shields with the grenades, practically directly on top of the people – but they did not retreat. This is beyond my comprehension.

Now, at 8 o’clock in the morning, there is calm. I do not know for how long, but it is quiet so far. The Maidan stands. It’s cut in half, but it stands.

The video is of an attack of the “Berkut,” the most brutal one of the night for me:”