Police accused over Kiev protest killings freed in prisoner swap
Relatives and a Ukrainian prisoner of war released after a prisoner exchange walk from a plane upon his arrival at Boryspil airport, outside Kiev, Ukraine.
Five riot police officers accused of killing protesters during the 2014 revolution were released by Ukraine yesterday as part of a prisoner swap with proRussian separatists in the east.
The officers, who allegedly shot protesters during the ‘‘Euromaidan’’ uprising in Kiev, were among 124 detainees handed over by Ukraine as part of the swap. It said that it had received 76 people in exchange from the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk ‘‘people’s republics’’.
Relatives of those who were killed during the revolution had pleaded with President Volodymyr Zelensky not to release the officers, saying that it meant they would never be brought to justice.
Oleg Sentsov, 43, a prominent filmmaker from Crimea whom Russia handed to Ukraine as part of a swap in September, also criticised the new
Russia-backed separatist war prisoners walk after being released after a prisoner exchange, near Odradivka, eastern Ukraine. exchange, saying that Ukraine was giving up ‘‘real murderers’’ while other Ukrainians would remain in captivity in Russia and the rebel territories. ‘‘All that Ukrainians fought for is turning to ash,’’ he said.
Zelensky, 41, made the return of prisoners an election pledge when he came to power in April and many
Ukrainians supported the exchange despite criticism over releasing the officers from the Berkut unit.
A prisoner exchange was one point agreed by Zelensky and President Vladimir Putin of Russia when they met for peace talks over the war in eastern Ukraine brokered by President Macron of France and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.
Oleg Yanishevsky, Sergei Zinchenko, Pavel Abroskin, Oleksandr Marynchenko, and Serhiy Tamtura were accused of shooting protesters on Instytutska Street in Kiev on February 20, 2014. Forty-eight people died and eighty were injured. The killings were part of a crackdown instituted while President Viktor Yanukovych, a supporter of Moscow, tried to cling to power. He had faced determined street protests over his refusal to enter an economic agreement with the EU and fled to Russia two days later.
– The Times