In the wake of Ukraine’s 2014 Euromaidan revolution, the country’s General Prosecutor’s Office undertook a major investigation into the violence. This expanded into 89 criminal cases – covering murders of protesters and police officers, the violent dispersal of demonstrators by riot police, accusations against former president Viktor Yanukovych and the passing of so-called “dictatorship laws” in January 2014.
For example, in Kyiv, a week doesn’t go by without court hearings into the shooting of protesters on the city’s central Instytutska Street on 20 February 2014.
In the courtroom, relatives of the victims sit on the right, while those of the accused on the left. The defendants in this particular case are 26 ex-members of the Berkut riot police unit (the unit was dissolved after 2014). Twenty one of them escaped to Russia and received Russian citizenship - only five people are in the dock. They are accused of killing 48 people and wounding 80 during events on Instytutska Street.
