Saturday, April 12, 2014, 09:54
The ex-chief of the Alpha Special Forces of the Secret Service of Ukraineh Volodymyr Chovhanyuk asserted that the Trade Union’s House was set on fire by the protesters. He made this claim at the meeting of the Verkhovna Rada Interim Committee of Inquiry into the Mass-shooting of the People, LIGABusinessinform reported. According to his account, when the Special Forces entered the Trade Union’s House one of the group opened negotiations with the activists.
“The first snatch group came to the 7th floor. They stopped at the 8th floor because “the cleaning-up” had been initiated in three directions, from three staircases,”Chovhanyuk said. “They stopped for the purpose of drawing up the groups in a line. At this time, there negotiations began with the protesters. They were let go but they set fire to the floor,” he said. One of the commanders of the groups which came up to the 8th floor began to negotiate. The protesters asked who you are and why? They were explained and said “guys, you’d better go away from here because the building will be cleaned up”. They were given an opportunity to go away but after that they set fire to the staircase and the 7the floor. Our men were extinguishing the fire,” he added.
“Every third man was given a personal fire extinguisher and was to un-roll the fire pump. But there was a lot of smoke and we couldn’t perform our duties. Even our bag spouts were of zero use, which is why I gave an order to evacuate to the roof. I left some officers at the floor just for the single purpose of ensuring that if the protesters had came up they wouldn’t have burnt and suffocated and they could be evacuated to the next building,”-he said.
“The other group had been located at the next building. The task was if we had had a fire and had no possibility to go lower they should’ve provided an alternative entrance through the wall and we could enter the floors in such a manner. I received a report about a strong scent of gasoline on the 7th floor. I understood that even a spark could start a fire and the snatch group would suffer as a result. I ordered to come down to the 6th floor, then the 4th floor, then the 3rd floor. And I ordered them to come out from the 3rd floor at the street.
The original text is on Ukrainska Pravda at http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2014/04/11/7022117/
