Translated material
Mina against demonstrators
What happens in Kharkov after the attack. Report "Medusa"
On February 22, in Kharkov, during the Euromaidan campaign dedicated to the memory of Heavenly Hundred and the flight of Viktor Yanukovych from the country, an explosion occurred. Three people were killed, 15 were injured, ten people are in hospitals. Kharkov journalist Anna Zhurba found out what is happening in the city.
A year ago, it was at the Sports Palace that deputies from all-east of the Ukrainian Front took place , in which the Governor of the Kharkov Region Mikhail Dobkin took part (a few days later he left his post) and the mayor of Kharkov Gennady Kernes, as well as the head of all Russian regions border guards. It was expected that the congress would proclaim the "Southeast Autonomy", but this did not happen. On the same day, Yanukovych left the Ukrainian capital towards Crimea, a revolution won in Kyiv. Subsequently, the new Kyiv authorities managed to maintain control of the Kharkov region.
About a thousand people took part in the rally on February 22, 2015, held under the banners of the “Right Sector” (the organization), Ukraine and Kharkov. After the main part, the activists advanced a procession to Moscow Prospekt in order to go through the center. The adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Gerashchenko later said: “In the snowdrift of the snow located on the road, along which patriotic Kharkovites were supposed to go, an explosive device of directed action was hidden in advance, controlled remotely. When the head of the column of the demonstrators was caught with a snowdrift, an explosion occurred. ”
According to eyewitnesses, there could be much more injured, but people saved the minibus, which stood next to the place of the explosion. Most of all went to those who were at the head of the column. According to Medusa, the fighters of the Kharkov-1 battalion were heavily wounded, who were just engaged in ensuring the security of the rally, as well as activists of the Right Sector. One of the leaders of the Kharkov Euromaidan, the head of the volunteer movement, 52-year-old physicist Igor Tolmachev, died right on the spot. Later it became known about another murdered - it turned out to be deputy chief of the Pervomaisky regional police department, Lieutenant Colonel Vadim Rybalchenko. In addition, on the afternoon of February 23, a 15-year-old boy died . The number of victims continues to grow , now there are 15 of them, among them - five police officers who were going through the column of demonstrators.
One of the Euromaidan activists Igor Rassokha (he participated in the procession) told Medusa: “We and Igor Tolmachev led the column. Then there were two explosions. I was not afraid, but rather surprised - as an explosion packets at the stadium. Only people around began to run away, who to fall. Igor somehow discarded. He fell and was all in blood. They unfastened the jacket: in the area of the heart there was a hole from where the blood flowed. I called those who have first aid skills ... somehow they turned it over, made artificial respiration. I shouted: “Call an ambulance!” She was called. Although not a single ambulance was on duty at the site of our large rally and further move. When the ambulance arrived, the doctors somehow ran in of Igor. They hurried to the other wounded. When we brought him on a stretcher and laid it in a car, a doctor came running and screamed at us: “Take it off! You brought a corpse! And we save us alive!” Then the doctors from another ambulance told us that Igor died at the time of the explosion. Instantly ".
According to the deputy mayor of Svetlana Gorbunova-Ruban, the eight wounded were taken to the hospital on the ambulance carriage, the two turned themselves. “The victims are located in city hospitals No. 17, 25, in the regional children's clinical hospital, and some police officers were taken to a military hospital. The victims were wounded by fragmentation. They have injured arms, legs, abdominal cavity, and traumatic brain injuries were obtained. Mostly young people under 30 years old were injured, ”Gorbunova-Ruban notes. According to eyewitnesses, the first "ambulance" arrived at the place only after 10-15 minutes, although according to the rules of mass events, they had to be on duty nearby.
Experts, explosives and operatives work at the scene; Select data from video cameras located in nearby houses. This was announced to reporters by adviser to the Minister of the Interior Anton Gerashchenko. Through his Facebook, the police turned to motorists who drove around the night or early morning along Marshal Zhukov Avenue, with a request to check the recording of their DVRs.
As Yuri Danilchenko, the prosecutor of the Kharkov region, told reporters, the explosion was qualified as a terrorist act. According to him, the explosives were hidden in a bag and compacted in the snow. On February 23, the Kharkov prosecutor's office reported that the anti -personnel mine exploded on the radio, which was laid the day before at night. The purpose of the attack, according to the prosecutor's office, is to “destabilize the situation in Kharkov.” TNT was used as an explosive.
Literally within an hour after the incident of the SBU and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, they reported that suspects were detained in organizing and carrying out terrorist attacks in Kharkov. “Four people were detained who prepared the shelling of the club“ bumblebee ”of the club, where the ATO warriors and volunteers, as well as one of the city’s trading cents, often gather. Other sabotage and terrorist measures were planned. The firmer of the “bumblebee” of Russian production is seized. According to the detainees, he was received by the leader of the group in Belgorod, ”says the adviser to the head of the SBU, Markiyan Lubkivsky.
Representatives of the city and regional authorities also spoke about the attack. The mayor of the city, Gennady Kernes, called on the townspeople "on these difficult days to refrain from any radical actions in response to a perfect terrorist attack." “I hope that law enforcement officers have enough strength and ability to find and transfer the guilty in this explosion in the hands of justice,” Kernes said. The governor of the Kharkov region Igor Rainin was more harsh: “I regard this cynical and impudent explosion as an attempt to intimidate the Kharkiv residents and expand the terrorist threat zone.”
Users of social networks are directly accused of organizing the terrorist attack of pro -Russian activists and the so -called “Kharkov partisans”. For the first time about this group, it became known in October-November 2014. In their videos, they took responsibility for a few explosions in Kharkov, starting from the explosion on November 9 in the Bar "Wall" (then 13 people were injured). According to the SBU, the group has existed since the summer of 2014, and consists mainly of Kharkiv residents; Their leaders are allegedly in Belgorod. Later, the attacks of the Partizan were subjected to a railway, a military unit, and district courts. However, the explosion on February 22 was the first, as a result of which people died.
In an emergency statement , one of the speakers of the Kharkov partisans, Philip Ecosyans, says that his group is not related to what happened near the Sports Palace; Ecosyanz recalled that none of the previous explosions of the Partisan led to human victims.
“Kharkov has long been in the position of the front-line city, and after the whole world de facto was forced to recognize the existence of the DPR and the LPR, the further plans of the militias are, among other things, Kharkov, which was already stated by Mr. [DPR leader Alexander] Zakharchenko,” says Kharkov political scientist Nikolai Marin. - To take the city with military methods is rather unrealistic, so the situation in the city will actively swing, thereby changing the mood of the population and local elites. Especially the situation will be heated, in my opinion, on the eve of May 9 and closer to the local elections that are scheduled for autumn 2015. ”
Anna Zhurba
Kharkov