Ballistics test confirms involvement of five ex-Berkut officers in killings on Maidan

Today, the Sviatoshynsky District Court in Kyiv completed examination of ballistics tests within the case against former officers of the Berkut riot police force over killing 48 Maidan activists.

According to representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, test of the bullets and their fragments removed from the bodies of protesters, who had been killed and wounded on the Independence Square in Kyiv, confirmed the involvement of the accused ex-Berkut officers in the crime, LІGA.net news portal reports.

“The last test managed to establish specific rifles which had been assigned to a special forces unit [unit of Kyiv Berkut] and which had been used to kill and wound the protesters. The test established the fact of murder from specific rifles assigned to specific staff members,” Oleksiy Donskyi, the prosecutor of the Prosecutor General’s Office, said to journalists during the court hearing break.

January 26, the case of five former officers of the Berkut riot police force, Pavlo Abroskin and Serhiy Zinchenko, suspected into killing 48 Maidan activists, deputy commander of Berkut regiment Oleh Yanishevsky and his two subordinates, was sent to the court.