Eastern Europe I 17
bne March 2015
rushed up the hill after them, intending to re-erect barricades further up Institutska road. It was then that the security forces started shooting, killing scores of protestors in the following hours, in harrowing scenes that then flashed round the world on YouTube. Why did the police pull back so suddenly, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory? And why, having refrained throughout the night from using even truncheons against protestors, did security forces suddenly open fire on protestors with live rounds? Fired on In the year of chaos that has followed Yanukoych's departure, which has since led to a global security crisis, these questions have remained unanswered. Now two accounts have come to largely the same conclusion: the police, having moved onto Maidan, and apparently gaining the upper hand against the protest camp, pulled back abruptly because they were fired upon by armed groups within the protest camp. BBC reporters have now talked to a man who claims he was equipped with a high-velocity hunting rifle as a member of an armed Maidan unit housed in the Kyiv Conservatory. That Conservatory directly overlooks the part of the Maidan where the water cannon-mounted vehicles had entered from Institutska. The man called Sergei tells the BBC that his unit started firing on police in the morning of February 20. “I was shooting downwards at their feet," Sergei claimed. "Of course, I could have hit them in the arm or anywhere. But I didn't shoot to kill." The BBC quoted pro-Europe MP and former journalist Andriy Shevchenko as saying that a police chief in charge of officers on Institutska called him frantically to inform that his men were under fire from the Conservatory, and that casualties were mounting. The BBC also identified a Ukrainian photographer
Dodging the draft in Ukraine
Graham Stack in Kyiv With Russian-backed rebels threatening to raise a 100,000-strong army and the fighting in eastern Ukraine becoming increasingly bloody, the ceasefire deal comes at just the right time for a Ukrainian army facing massive draftdodging. The Ukrainian defence ministry on January 20 launched its fourth wave of mobilisation of the country's reservists since its "anti-terrorist campaign" started in April 2014. The army reserves comprise men who have undergone one year of mandatory national military service. The ministry said a total of just under 62,000 reservists had already received their draft papers in the new wave, half of the overall target number. But writing on Facebook, presidential advisor Yury Biryukov said that draftdodging, which is punishable by by up to three years in jail, had become endemic, even in West Ukraine – the traditional heartland of Ukrainian patriotism. According to Biryukov, 57% of those called up in the western region of Ivano-Frankivsk, named after a national poet, had simply ignored their draft papers, while an estimated 37% of those called up had crossed the border into Romania. “Unofficial sources tell us that hotels and motels on the other side of the border with Romania are packed with draft-dodgers,” he wrote. In the Facebook post – which he later deleted after a storm of controversy – Biryukov alleged that 14 village councils in Ivano-Frankivsk had refused to allow the distribution of draft papers in the villages. The same is true of other West Ukrainian regions, Biryukov said, adding that 17% of draftees from neighbouring Chernivtsi region had left for Romania. Biryukov said that the draft was proceeding “normally” in southern and central areas closer to the conflict, such as Odesa, Mikolaevsk and Dnipropetrovsk. Other reports, however, spoke of difficulties there as well. The army commissioner for Poltava region in central Ukraine on January 27 said that 50% of draftees had failed to show, Interfax Ukraine reported. In the town of Kremenchug, the responsible official said that only around 10 reserve officers had showed up for service out of several hundred registered locally. One district council in Odesa region has resorted to tough measures to improve the draft, posting on its website an order prohibiting reservists from leaving the district until all call-up papers had been issued. The order was later removed from the website. Other reports speak of widespread corruption in the call-up system allowing draftees to buy themselves free. Some military analysts argue that draft-dodging is a necessary evil to sort the wheat from the chaff, with the patriotically motivated who answer the call of far greater value to the army in action.