"Maidan Massacre": American documentary with taste of Russian propaganda

Three days ago, on Friday, November 21st Ukraine commemorated the one year anniversary of Euromaidan. At that day BBC Ukraine published a list of the documentaries about the Revolution of Dignity. And I was really surprised to find out that one of these movies was made by Americans.  

"Maidan Massacre" is a documentary directed by John Hoffmann. It is an investigation of the shootings that took place on 20th of February in Kyiv in result of which near 100 people died. So, I started to watch this documentary, full of expectations that if it is made by Americans, it must be good. I hoped that the movie will be direct and will show all the crimes of President Yanukovych and his people.

On the very first seconds of the movie, when the map of Ukraine appeared, I started doubting the objective views of John Hofmann. The thing is that the map lacked Crimea which is de jure Ukrainian land. However, for some reason Hoffmann chose to join the peninsula to Russia. 

Second thing that compels my attention was the episode from Russian news. Why the director decided to place it in the film? Can't he pick some episodes made by European or American journalists who are definitely more trustworthy than their Russian colleagues?

 What's more, while showing the beginning of the protest the author doesn't tell a word about events of the 30th of November. At that night many innocent unarmed students were brutally beaten on the Independence Square, also called Maidan. It was a turning point in the development of Revolution. Tens, and then hundreds thousands of people came on the Maidan not because of the EU integration, but because they wanted to show their protest against the arbitrariness of the government.

Also, the movie pays no attention to all the crimes of  Yanukovych government. Instead, it tells how more and more aggressive protestors became without mentioning the reasons for such behaviour. So, it creates the impression that demonstrators were some frivolous people who just didn't like their President anymore and decided to organise a political upheaval.

Moreover, John Hoffmann claims that protestors were well-armed. If "well-armed" means wooden shields and sticks, stones and Molotov cocktails, than he is right. But how these can be compared to the professional weapon policemen had? Of course, "Maidan Massacre" promotes a message that policeman didn't have firearms, that they would not have shot unless there was a threat to their life, that their commander would dismiss them for using arms. However, former Minister of Internal Affairs Vitaliy Zakcharchenko admitted that policemen were allowed to use weapon against the protesters. And they definitely used it.

Nevertheless, it's the soldiers who were under the pressure, as the movie says. During one of the episodes Ben Tisa, an express witness consultant and law enforcement instructor, gives his arguments in support of policemen. He claims that policemen's task is to protect people, not to kill them. It is a correct statement, but unfortunately it doesn't appeal to the Ukrainian reality. There are a lot of videos and photographs that shows how officers shot at protesters and beat them with sticks. Policemen even shot at journalists and medical workers and eventually killed at least 2 of them. These facts are known to the Western press, but for some reason the author of the movie didn't include it in his documentary.

The movie mentions that on both sides were dead people, but doesn't give precise numbers. Maybe, they decided not to mention it because there were almost 100 protesters killed and 16 policemen. It doesn't look logical to me that demonstrators (who as the documentary says, could be the one to blame in shootings) would accidentally kill so many of their people.

The documentary ends with a speech of Victoria Nuland, the US Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs. She expresses the US support for Ukrainian people and their disgust for the actions of Ukrainian government. Victoria Nuland adds that she witnessed how the government used bulldozers and tear gas against the people who were holding each other’s hands and together prayed for peace. These last minutes of "Maidan Massacre" are very ironic because the speech that praises Ukrainian people and their peaceful fight for freedom is accompanied by the video fragments of aggressive behaviour of the protestors against policemen.

Taking all these into consideration, I can say that either John Hoffmann knows close to nothing about real events that happened on Maidan or he has read too much of the Russian propagandistic press. Or maybe he wanted to express his dissatisfaction with American government and its action in support of Ukrainian demonstrators.

Frankly speaking, I had to watch the movie twice because after the first viewing I was very indignant over the way the documentary presents such a tragic day in my country's history. So, next day I watched it one more time doing my best to be objective. However, hard as I try I could never agree to the author position. I feel very sorry that many foreigners have already watched "Maidan Massacre" and got the wrong impression of these events.

So, just in case you are interested in the subject of Euromaidan and want to know more about it I'd like to recommend you a few documentaries made by Ukrainian filmmakers. These films are in Ukrainian, but all of them have English subtitles:

"The Celestial Hundred. The winter, that changed us" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_je1B9s4H4

"The Female Faces of Revolution" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2liRXURTrYg

"Self-Defense" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wj4tbRikOY

"The First Death" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkHn4agjkxk