Dangerous import

Weapons and drugs were trafficked to Kiev’s Independence Square, known as the Maidan across the world, in the autumn and winter of 2013/2014 when the protests rocked the country, Ukraine’s former Interior Minister Viktor Zakharchenko told reporters in Sevastopol on Friday.

“First, appeals were heard to bring arms from homes. Second, operative information came that foreign weapons had started flowing to Maidan - short-barrelled, automatic and handguns,” Zakharchenko said. “Third, large-scale seizures of police stations and warehouses in Western Ukraine began, triggering appeals from the stage [on Maidan] to open fire.”

 Drugs, weapons supplied to Kiev’s Maidan protesters from abroad, former minister reveals