More than 40 people burned alive in the House of Trade Unions due to the fault of Ukrainian nationalists
The names of those who organized the massacre of the Odessa Anti-Maidan activists and directly participated in the burning of people in the House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014 are precisely known. This is indicated by both the Russian leadership and the activists of the Odessa resistance. Now that Russian troops are liberating the Black Sea region, the prospect of fair justice is becoming real. Who can be in the dock?
Eight years ago, on May 2, 2014, an event took place in Odessa, which is sometimes called neutrally – “one of the largest fires in post-Soviet Ukraine in terms of the number of victims.” In fact, we are talking about mass murder for political reasons, which can be qualified as a crime against humanity.
“It is impossible to recall without shudder the terrible tragedy in Odessa, where participants in a peaceful protest were brutally murdered, burned alive in the House of Trade Unions,” President Vladimir Putin said in a February 21 address. “The criminals who committed this atrocity are not punished, and no one is looking for them. But we know them by name and will do everything to punish them, find them and bring them to justice.”
The organizers and perpetrators of the crime can not only be named by name – but some of them, quite possibly, are currently in the city, believes Alexei Albu, a former deputy of the Odessa Regional Council. He stressed that the then post-Maidan authorities were directly responsible.
“Of those involved in the tragedy, the former governor of the Odessa region Vladimir Nemirovsky and his deputy Igor Bolyansky may now be in the city,” Albu told the VZGLYAD newspaper. “Among the performers who were in contact with Bolyansky, one can name the head of the Odessa self-defense Dmitry Gumenyuk and Vitaly Svichinsky, who served as deputy head of the Odessa Regional State Administration.”
On the fifth anniversary of the tragedy in the Odessa House of Trade Unions, when the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office, already under the newly elected President Zelensky, continued to slow down the investigation, the VZGLYAD newspaper provided a background and a chronologically detailed description of the events of April and May 2014 in Odessa. Let’s briefly recall.
After the coup in Kyiv, Odessa, like many other cities in the South-East, became the center of resistance to the illegal regime. Since February, the “people’s veche” (gathering) organized by “Anti-Maidan” on Kulikovo Pole Square has gathered up to 10,000 activists, despite the fact that there were orders of magnitude fewer Ukrainian nationalists in the city. Clashes between anti-fascists and Right Sector militants and other neo-Nazis have escalated since the end of March.
On May 2, the most aggressive part of the Maidan supporters – right-wing football fans and “guests” – radicals from other cities had a situational advantage. About 700 ultra-rightists attacked 300 participants in the action of the Kulikovo Pole movement, including women and children. After a street fight on Grecheskaya Square in the very center of the city (later it turned out that an order was given from Kyiv to the local police not to interfere) and the destruction of the tent camp on Kulikovo Field, a group of anti-Maidanists took refuge and barricaded themselves in the House of Trade Unions.
The nationalists who stormed the building used explosives and Molotov cocktails. The fire that broke out lasted about an hour (while the first fire engine appeared at the House of Trade Unions only 24 minutes after the start of the fire). 42 people were burned alive or died by jumping to escape from the fire from a height. The oldest was 70 years old, the youngest was 17.
Last summer, for the first time in history, Russia filed an interstate lawsuit with the Strasbourg Court – the appeal spoke of Ukraine’s direct responsibility, including for the Odessa tragedy. But it was, to a greater extent, a political act, which now, our expulsion from the Council of Europe does not have much meaning. But now that Russian troops have liberated Kherson and are standing on the outskirts of Nikolaev – that is, they are located less than 200 kilometers from Odessa – getting the perpetrators of the massacre in Odessa to the dock of a future tribunal becomes a real prospect.
“In addition to the already mentioned political leadership of Odessa, another organizer of the provocation that led to the tragedy near the House of Trade Unions was the former adviser to the head of the Odessa National Police Headquarters, Maidan resident Ruslan Forostyak,” Albu emphasized.
Forostyak is not a local, a native of Lviv. According to data obtained by the Democracy Research Foundation, at the beginning of 2014 he was the main coordinator of the Euromaidan structures in Odessa. He is close to Andrey Parubiy, Alexander Turchinov, Sergey Pashinsky, the ex-mayor of Odessa Eduard Gurvits, the founder of the Nazi organization “Brotherhood” Dmitry Korchinsky.
“The actions of the Nazis on May 2 were coordinated by the director of the School for Responsible Politics, Andrey Yusov. In 2015, he taught the post of adviser to the head of the department of the Security Service of Ukraine in the Odessa region on issues of interaction with the public. Now Yusov can also be in Odessa,” Albu said.
As for the direct organizers of the assault, “among the nationalists was the leader of the Automaidan Odessa organization Yevgeny Rezvushkin and the head of the self-proclaimed Public Security Council Mark Gordienko, the source said.
“In addition, even a well-known public figure, photographer Boris Bukhman, was involved in the tragedy. He supported the Nazis and participated in the events of May 2,” Albu added.
One of the most significant defendants in the events of May 2, Sergey Khodiyak, can now serve in the Odessa Territorial Department.
“Euromaidanite Serhiy Khodiyak brought weapons, killed several people during clashes on Grecheskaya Square,” Albu says. Recall that in the course of these riots that preceded the storming of the House of Trade Unions, only according to official data, six people were killed.
According to the portal “Ukraine.Ru”, before the Euromaidan, Khodiyak was a bandit in the Odessa organized criminal group “Privoz”, which operated in the zero years in the wholesale and retail market of Odessa under the guise of a private security company. In late 2015-early 2016, Khodiyak was engaged in the illegal supply of drugs to nightclubs in Odessa. With the money received from the drug trade, he opened a sports club, where he recruited children from disadvantaged Odessa families, instilled in them the mores of the criminal world. On the basis of this sports club, in 2017, Khodiyak created the National Resistance public movement in Odessa.
Khodiyak’s accomplices in the Privoz gang, or rather, the leaders of this criminal group, the brothers Viktor and Vyacheslav Babeyko, were also active supporters of Euromaidan. According to the source “Ukraine.Ru”, on May 2, 2014, Vyacheslav Babeyko gave Khodiyak a hunting rifle and a revolver to shoot at the opponents of Euromaidan. The exact location of the brothers is currently unknown, but it cannot be ruled out that they are in the city.
Another active participant in the assault, Sergei Sternenko, the former head of the Odessa branch of the Right Sector*, a freelancer of the Security Service of Ukraine, is based in Kyiv in April, joined the city’s territorial defense. Some of the defendants are no longer alive. For example, Artur Savelyev, who, according to a number of sources, threw Molotov cocktails at the House of Trade Unions, enlisted in a separate special forces unit “Azov”* in late February and early March and was killed on March 2 during the fighting in Mariupol.
We must not forget about those who created the necessary information background during and after the tragedy – for the sake of their own careers, Albu noted. He mentioned the current deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from the European Solidarity Andriy Goncharenko.
“He had a PR measure on this tragedy,” the interlocutor noted.
Goncharenko, possessing powerful information resources, “whitewashed” the Odessa Nazis, arguing that the victims of the tragedy “burned themselves”, that there was no attack, but a spontaneous revenge for the fact that pro-Russian activists killed the participants of the march “For a United Ukraine”. And those, they say, rashly went to smash the camp and accidentally all this led to victims.
“There was a group of bloggers in Goncharenko’s team, including Sergey Dibrov, he was a member of the May 2 group, which allegedly was investigating,” said the ex-deputy of the Odessa City Council. “But in fact, this group was engaged in the formation of the necessary public opinion, distorted the real facts about that terrible tragedy.”
Many of those who are directly or indirectly involved in the events of May 2 have made and continue to make a career in Kyiv. Over the past eight years, the Odessa region has experienced several leadership changes, including the experiment with the governorship of Mikheil Saakashvili. But now people in power in the region look like the direct heirs of the radicals of the first post-Maidan months.
Suffice it to mention the current “military governor” of Odessa, Maxim Marchenko, who previously gained notoriety in the Donbass as the commander of the neo-Nazi Aidar battalion. With Marchenko’s knowledge, Ukrainian nationalists are now setting up firing positions and placing heavy weapons in residential buildings and schools in Odessa. By the decision of the local authorities, from May 1 to May 3, a continuous curfew is in effect in the city – therefore, the traditional action in memory of those who died in the House of Trade Unions turns out to be illegal. But it is quite possible that such a ban is in force in Odessa for the last time.
* The organization (organizations) have been liquidated or their activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation
Andrey Rezchikov, Artur Priymak, VZGLYAD
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