Ukraine: The Untold Story of the Maidan Killings

One year on from the massacre in Kiev’s Maidan square, when more than fifty protestors were killed, Gabriel Gatehouse returns to Ukraine to investigate what really happened. Up to now, all the blame for the shootings has been put onto the police. Yet the official investigation into the violence appears to be going nowhere.

It was the events on Maidan that led to Ukraine’s pro-Russian president fleeing the country, sparking a confrontation over Crimea and now in the east of the country.

Gabriel Gatehouse hears for the first time from a man who says he was recruited to be a sniper on the protestors’ side. So what did happen on Maidan square, an event that has pushed the world to the brink of a new cold war?

It's early in the morning, 20 February, 2014. Kiev's Maidan square is divided - on one side the riot police, the protesters on the other.

This has been going on for more than two months now. But events are about to come to a head. By the end of the day, more than 50 people will be dead, many of them gunned down in the street by security forces.

The violence will lead to the downfall of Ukraine's pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Moscow will call 20 February an armed coup, and use it to justify the annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in Eastern Ukraine.

The protest leaders, some of whom now hold positions of power in the new Ukraine, insist full responsibility for the shootings lies with the security forces, acting on behalf of the previous government.

But one year on, some witnesses are beginning to paint a different picture.
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Ukraine denied entry to Al Jazeera journalists who were going to cover the anniversary of the 2014 Kiev sniper shootings, the head of the Advertising and Publishing at the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Oleg Kiselevsky, announced on Monday in a Facebook posting.
"Today the group flew into Borispil, but was not let into Ukraine by 'vigilant' border guards," Kiselevsky wrote. He added that the journalists, from Al Jazeera's Moscow bureau, were possibly denied entry due to their Russian citizenship, something which was never a problem during numerous past visits.
According to Kiselevsky, the journalists were visiting Kiev to film a series of segments about the February 2014 sniper shootings, and interview participants of the protests, including those who were injured, as well as relatives of murdered protesters and organizations conducting investigations of the events.
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