On how these specially trained Berkut forces fight a young woman working as a medical volunteer on EuroMaidan

EuroMaidan activists have repored new prowess from Berkut riot police who detained a young woman and then dumped her in a forest. Oleksandra Khailak has been working for the last 2 weeks as a volunteer for the Maidan medical services. She had apparently set off for home, to see her mother. Police officers came up to her at the railway station and wanted to check her documents. As she pulled them out, her EuroMaidan badge dropped on the ground. The police immediately called Berkut who put her in a car and began driving her around police stations. None of the police stations wanted to take her, saying that there was a special police station taking them. This, apparently, was news to the EuroMaidan activists. For some reasons, Berkut didn’t take Oleksandra to the police station. Instead with the temperature as low as minus 10 they simply dumped her in the forest. They took her documents away from her, but thankfully left her mobile telephone. She was able to call for help and get out of the forest.

This incident is worthy of attention for another reason as well. A large number of activists have already been remanded in custody or (exceptionally) placed under house arrest and could face long sentences over charges of “organizing mass riots”. Oleksandra Khailak was detained simply because police officers checking her document saw her EuroMaidan badge. Had she been a man, it seems likely that the outcome of this encounter with Berkut riot police would have been different and another bruised and beaten young man might be standing accused of causing “disturbances”.

Halya Coynash