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Berkut policemen were unarmed, they did not shoot

MOSCOW, April 05 /ITAR-TASS/. Berkut policemen did not shoot people on Maidan, former Ukrainian interior minister Vitaly Zakharchenko told reporters.

"I am 100 percent sure those were not policemen," he stressed, noting Berkut members were unarmed when they went to all sites.

On February 18 and 19, eighty six policemen received bullet wounds. Fourteen of them were killed. Among them were interior troops, Berkut members and traffic policemen who were shot when they stood at their posts, the ex-minister noted.

On February 20, fire was opened on policemen in Kiev at Institutskaya Street near the House of Trade Unions, he said. Berkut forces and interior troops began to retreat. "It is clear for any person that if law-enforcers had opened fire they would have advanced for the offensive they would have opened fire. But at the time when some began to kill them, they retreated."

When wounded people were taken to hospitals, it was seen what wounds they had received. Those were shots from 9-mm-calibre pistols, hunting guns, shotguns and buckshots.

Fire was opened on Maidan protesters and policemen from a building that was under control of the Maidan commandant, the current secretary of the National Security Council, Andrei Paruby. He controlled also other seized buildings, in which there were "torture chambers", the former minister noted.