A year ago, Kiev still controlled Crimea, “little green men” were still imaginary aliens rather than undercover Russian troops, there were no “people’s republics” in Donetsk and Luhansk, and the Kremlin was yet to revive an obscure and ominous historical term – “New Russia” – for eastern and southern Ukraine.
Sergei was working near Kiev's Independence Square where, over nearly three months, thousands of protesters had created a vast camp dedicated to ousting President Viktor Yanukovich and his government.
The people on the square, which Ukrainians call Maidan, viewed Yanukovich as the embodiment of the things they loathed about the elite: colossal corruption, brutality and subservience to the Kremlin.
Sergei saw the crowds. He heard their chants and songs deriding Yanukovich and Russia, and celebrating a Ukrainian identity that was routinely mocked, and had for centuries been suppressed, by Ukraine’s huge neighbour.
As winter wore on, he also saw mainstream politicians lose influence to radical Ukrainian nationalists, the rallies become more violent, and clashes on the barricades kill demonstrators and badly injure riot police.
“I was in Kiev for three months, from the beginning to the end of Maidan,” Sergei says.
“I was a police officer, with the special unit called Berkut.”
It was the Berkut riot police who faced off against the protesters, day after day, night after night, through snow and fog and the acrid smoke of burning tyres.
State violence
These massed ranks of big men in camouflage, body armour and black helmets, lugging heavy shields and truncheons and firing stun grenades and tear gas, came to symbolise the threat of extreme state violence against Maidan.
Across barricades built from frozen snow, old doors and broken furniture, Berkut faced off against a motley activists’ army clad mostly in homemade protective gear, and wielding metal rods and wooden bats; on several occasions, Berkut severely beat and abused protesters.
Maidan had its own volunteer “self-defence” force led by nationalist politician Andriy Parubiy, but it was clear that it would be no match for Berkut – “Golden Eagle” in Ukrainian – if Yanukovich gave an order to clear Maidan.
A year ago today, shots rang out around Maidan.
Shocked, and struggling to believe that their worst fears were being realised, protesters desperately carried dead and wounded comrades to impromptu field hospitals around the square.
The world watched, appalled, as central Kiev became a killing ground. The bloodied bodies of protesters were laid out in rows on Maidan, in the lobby of the nearby Hotel Ukraina, and in the gardens of St Michael’s golden-domed cathedral.
By the end of the day, more than 50 protesters were dead, unleashing a wave of public anger that would sweep Yanukovich from power within 48 hours.
At least three policemen were also shot dead, and Yanukovich’s allies, Russian officials and other opponents of the pro-western Maidan movement have accused unidentified snipers of shooting people on both sides of the barricades, to trigger sufficient bloodshed to bring down the Moscow-backed regime.
“I personally saw people in the crowd with firearms, with pistols,” says Sergei.
“I didn’t see rifles or automatic weapons, but I have a friend [from Berkut] who is still recovering from a sniper bullet to the head.”
Maidan leaders insist the only snipers around the square were from the security services, and accuse Russian agents of involvement in the violence.
"They killed people one-by-one on Maidan," Parubiy tells The Irish Times.
Of Berkut officers and Yanukovich, he added: “They kept shooting until their daddy ran away.”
Yanukovich fled Kiev on the night of February 21st, when protesters rejected a compromise deal brokered by EU diplomats. His security services had already started to abandon him, Parubiy says.
“Officers from Alpha anti-terror unit contacted me on the 21st and said they were ready to clear the snipers from around Maidan. That’s when I realised the snipers were not local, but Russian,” he added.
“I brought the Alpha guys to Maidan to look for snipers in the Hotel Ukraina; and there were other signs of the system falling, like mid-level military officers coming over to our side.”
Sergei says his Berkut unit was guarding a government building as the revolution reached its bloody climax, and they suddenly “were ordered to get into buses and went home to Donetsk”.
While Berkut officers in some cities publicly begged forgiveness for serving in the widely loathed detachment, those from more pro-Russian areas like Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea received a very different welcome home.
“They treated us like heroes. They didn’t make us get down on our knees or judge us.
“There were no recriminations – we were just doing our job,” Sergei recalls.
As the upheaval of Maidan spiralled into Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the Moscow-backed separatist insurgency in the east, some Berkut officers moved to Russia or joined the rebel forces fighting Kiev’s troops.
Sergei (25) chose to remain in Ukraine with his wife and child, serving in its security services in Mariupol, a government-controlled port that is threatened by the militants. He refuses to reveal his exact job, whereabouts or real name.
Road to war
He is critical of Ukraine’s leaders and the conflict, and says it was “pretty clear when the shooting began [on Maidan] that it would end in war.”
“I’m in Ukraine but some relatives and friends stayed [in Donetsk] and support [the separatists],” Sergei says. “I’m a neutral person – the most important thing is peace.”
Ukraine’s new leaders quickly disbanded Berkut and, as the country remembers Maidan’s brutal end, its former officers will again be widely castigated.
But Sergei, for one, is unapologetic.
He lambasts the “traitor” Yanukovich for fleeing the country, and insists he still supports and respects his Berkut comrades wherever they may be.
“Imagine you stand in a line, and people abuse you, hit you, use gas on you for days, and then you are given an order to disperse those same people,” he says.
“Your emotions just explode. That’s why, for me, Berkut is not guilty of anything.”
