Image: leader of Neo Nazi Svoboda party together with John McCain

Global Research Editor’s Note

On the 20th of February, according to reports, more than twenty protesters were killed by professional snipers. This was not a spontaneous event resulting from clashes between protesters and riot police, nor was it marked by an exchange of gunfire between the police and the Neo-Nazi militia.

The sniper killings had the hallmarks of a carefully planned operation. They happened within ‘the space of a few hours”. Moreover, the killings coincided with the meetings of President Viktor Yanukovych with a high level EU delegation. In a bitter irony, these targeted killings were used as a pretext to topple the government and issue an arrest warrant directed against president Yanukovych

The following RT report confirms what is already known. The US Sponsored opposition militia was behind the shooting of civilians on February 20th.

Civilian casualties were part of this staged agenda, with a view to accusing president Yanukovych of “mass murder”, thereby providing a justification for regime change on humanitarian grounds.

Read the Report of Russia Today. GR will be releasing additional reports on this issue

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, March 5, 2014

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The snipers who shot at protesters and police in Kiev were allegedly hired by Maidan leaders, according to a leaked phone conversation between the EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and Estonian foreign affairs minister, which has emerged online.

“There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovich, but it was somebody from the new coalition,” Paet said during the conversation.

“I think we do want to investigate. I mean, I didn’t pick that up, that’s interesting. Gosh,” Ashton answered.

The call took place after Estonia’s Foreign Minister Urmas Paet visited Kiev on February 25 at the peak of clashes between the pro-EU protesters and security forces in the Ukrainian capital.

Paet also recalled his conversation with a doctor who treated those shot by snipers in Kiev. She said that both protesters and police were shot at by the same people.

“And second, what was quite disturbing, this same Olga [Bogomolets] told as well that all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides,” the Estonian FM stressed.

Ashton reacted to the information by saying: “Well, yeah…that’s, that’s terrible.”

“So that she then also showed me some photos she said that as a medical doctor she can say that it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it’s really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don’t want to investigate what exactly happened,” Paet said.

The file was reportedly uploaded to the web by officers of Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) loyal to ousted President Viktor Yanukovich who hacked Paet’s and Ashton’s phones.