Ukraine on Fire Page #4

after it's refusal to sign a major trade deal with eu

oliver stone:
you go back to kiev the next day

after the interview with merkel

and protests are on, am i right?

can you tell me about that period?

yanukovich:
in the beginning of this

i had an understanding that these are peaceful actions

and you can negotiate with peaceful protesters

and i was willing to do that

vitaliy zaharchenko: talking about protests of november through february

one has to account the dynamics of their development that happened beforehand

in ukraine there are many public organizations that are being funded from abroad

a huge number of journalists getting foreign grants

narrator:
robert perry is an investigative journalist working in washington dc

best know for his disclosure of the iran-contra in 1980s

he's a founder of consortiumnews.com

and he's reported extensively on the crisis in ukraine

and what stands behind it

robert perry:
a ngo is a non-governmental organization

and many ngo's are quite legit and working for good purposes

trying to help people, solving medical and water problems

but there are some ngo's that are funded by the government services

and serve more the purpose of that government

rather than trying to serve the people that they're supposed to work with

one thing we saw in the 1980s

at that point the cia

had been largely discredited

because of the scandals that were exposed in the 1970s

narrator:
for 15 years the cia had secretly financed

the overseas national students activities and associations

but then it came light of a big web of cia penetrations

robert perry:
so, when the reagan administration came in

there was this concept that instead of having the cia

that would traditionally go into these countries

funding their media, ngo's and different political operations

that was essentially passed to a new organization

called national endowment for democracy created in 1983

and it would do pretty much what the cia would do

penetrate the country, support different political groups

preparing activists, journalists, business groups

and pushing the interests of usa foreign policy

sometimes against the interests of the host countries government

they were also supplying an organizational and financial support

and help in trainings of activists

on their work with journalists

to be able to present their view in the best way

they worked on things like how to get popularity

how to make things viral, how to use it to get support for your ideas

narrator:
and the support was granted

m h, a founder of one of ukraine's new media

muatafa naem:
good evening or better good night

narrator:
tv knew very well how to make something go viral

it was his notorious post on facebook on november 21st of 2013

that have lead the first crowd to maidan

muatafa naem:
I made this post just to check

if there are any willing people or we were just talking

narrator:
if you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed

if you read the newspaper, you're misinformed

mark twain

to be heard in this modern world of media and social networks

you got to embrace them all

as the disturbing events of euromaidan started on november 21 of 2013

3 new tv channels went on the air

and immediately gained great popularity

spilno tv found on november 21st 2013

hromadske tv found on november 22nd 2013

espresso tv found on november 24th 2013

broadcasting directly from opposition protests

these channels went viral

openly supporting protests

and encouraging more and more people to come to maidan

vitaliy zaharchenko: the first mass actions began november 21st 2013

at first they were peaceful actions

a lot of different types of people were coming

young and old, some of them brought children

it was clear that they trust the government and the police also

they were walking free and there were no hints that any force will be used against them

so the law enforcement officers were doing their job of protecting the order without firearms

but among those protesters some radicals were already spotted

they were connected with far-right parties and neo-nazi organizations

so on november 24th they did the first aggressive action

on november 24-th the first attack on government office was made

and also the first attack on the police officers that were guarding it

the second attack on the ukrainian security service officers

happened on november 25th

then the notorious events of november 30th

narrator:
november 30th of 2013 became the first turning point of the maidan

though the events of that night were widely covered in press

the truth about what exactly happened is still uncertain

vitaliy zaharchenko: i will tell you how i personally saw these events

i got a call from popov

the head of the kiev administration

he said that they would like to begin installing the equipment for the christmas tree on the square

i explained him that while people are on the square it shouldn't be done

at about 1am when people began to leave the square

i had a talk with the head of the ukrainian security service

i asked his opinion on the current situation and he said

i suppose, thank god, it's over. we have an information that it is over.

because since November 21st i was literally living and sleeping in my office

if i was lucky to have couple of hours a day to sleep

at about 3am i came to my home, set-up my alarm for 6:30am

first thing in the morning i turned on my tv

it was set to channel 5

and it showed a lot of ambulance cars

and a lot of injured people

reporter:
armed with rubber bats

police officers were attacking the protesters

it happened early in the morning

the witnesses say that the police were indeed using the rubber bats

vitaliy zaharchenko: honestly it just hit me with a cold sweat

yanukovich:
my first reaction on maidan protesters

being hurt by the police was instant

we had to investigate who ordered to disperse the protesters

to use force against them

i was against using force

against violating the human rights

zaharchenko:
there is no way popov could make such a decision by himself

and who was the highest official for him?

the highest official for popov was a head of the president's administration

sergei liovochkin

narrator:
coincidentally, sergei liovochkin

was a close associate of many us politicians

the ukrainian security service had evidence that on that night

contacted with the opposition leader

and discussed the disperse of maidan with installing the christmas tree as an excuse

the news media reported that the police cold-blooded attacked students peacefully sleeping in their tents

but scenes from the event seem to tell a different story

it appears that the protesters were expecting the police

there were dozens of journalists, and cameras from the new tv channels already there

but the most suspicious was a group of well trained young men that arrived practically at the same time as police

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