kravietz 🦇<p>European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) has today published an interesting ruling on the complaint of victims of the <a class="hashtag" href="https://agora.echelon.pl/tag/ukraine" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Ukraine</a> <a class="hashtag" href="https://agora.echelon.pl/tag/odessa" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Odessa</a> clashes 2 May 2014 when 48 people were killed out of which 42 died in a Unions House fire.</p><p>I’m sure <a class="hashtag" href="https://agora.echelon.pl/tag/russia" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Russia</a> will be using this ruling for disinformation, so here’s a bit of a preemptive summary of the ruling:</p><ul><li>ECHR ruled Odesa (local) and Ukraine (central) authorities <strong>“guilty of inaction”</strong> to prevent the tragedy</li><li>ECHR clearly described the sequence of events, including <strong>escalatory Russian disinformation</strong>, whose purpose was evidently to maximise number of casualties</li><li>The court ordered authorities of Ukraine to pay compensation to the applicants </li></ul><p>This is the literal wording of the ruling:</p><blockquote><p>The relevant authorities had not done everything they reasonably could to prevent the violence, to stop that violence after its outbreak, and to ensure timely rescue measures for those trapped in the fire in the Trade Union Building.</p></blockquote><p>The part that ECHR did not mention in a single word, which makes it a bit absurd, is that <strong>the key figures responsible for “inaction” and escalation fled to Russia and obtained asylum there!</strong></p><p>The first victims on that day, mentioned by the ruling, were Euromaidan activists who were shot by Antimaidan activists who <strong>fired from behind police line, literally standing next to the local police chief Dmitry Fuchedzhi.</strong> One of the shooters was Antimaidan activist <strong>Vitaly Budko (“Botsman”).</strong> ECHR does not mention any of these.</p><p>Then, when the Unions House fire started, the arrival of fire brigade was intentionally delayed by <strong>Vladimir Bodelan</strong>, local emergency services chief. This was literally the “inaction” that ECHR writes about.</p><p>What ECHR has missed in the ruling is that <strong>Fuchedzhi, Budko, Bodelan and others all fled to Russia</strong> and are living there currently (it is mentioned but didn’t seem to have influence the ruling in any way). <a class="hashtag" href="https://agora.echelon.pl/tag/russia" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Russia</a> has, of course, denied any legal support in prosecuting these figures, while publicly blaming Ukraine for the tragedy.</p><p>Full ruling text:</p><p><a href="https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng-press#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22003-8180839-11477923%22%5D%7D" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng-press#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22003-8180839-11477923%22%5D%7D</a></p>