Over 17,000 people arrive in Kyiv by ‘Yanukovych trains’ during Maidan protests – media

At least 17 pairs (to and from) of nonscheduled trains, delivering people to secondary stations, arrived in Kyiv during Maidan protests.

This information is provided by journalists of Texty media outlet reports.

According to journalists, the trains arrived from Simferopol, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Mariupol and Kharkiv. The arrival dates were January 16, 23, 28 and February 20, 2014, i.e. the tensest days of protests in the capital. Tickets for those trains were bought up within a few minutes.

According to journalists’ estimates, 17,410 people were delivered to Kyiv. They got off at the stations which are not usually used by regular passenger trains.

Those people were most likely delivered to participate in the organized Antimaidan rallies in support of Viktor Yanukovych. In addition, the hired thugs, who attacked the peaceful protesters, were likely to be among them.

According to journalists, 4,000 passengers arrived in Kyiv by non-scheduled trains from Kharkiv on February 20 – the day of mass killing of activists. At the same time, Ukrzaliznytsya railways announced the termination of movement of trains in western direction for “indefinite period of time.”