KIEV,
Ukraine — The Ukraine government on Thursday accused ousted President
Viktor Yanukovych of using hired killers and kidnappers to terrorize his
political opponents with direction from Moscow, as Russia demanded to
know what NATO is up to in east Ukraine.
Prosecutor General Oleh
Makhnitsky said the evidence also showed that Russia's security service,
known as the FSB, helped Yanukovych's attempts to crush anti-government
protests that were attacked in February by forces that shot and killed
more than 80 people.
"We know that 26 FSB employees were present
at one of the shooting ranges of the Ukraine security services in
December 2013," Ukraine security services chief Valentyn Nalivaychenko
said.
He said Yanukovych's own former security service chief
visited the Russians and "actually reported to them." "We can presume
that these groups participated in organizing the anti-terrorist
organization."
The FSB, or the Russian Federal Security Services,
is the successor to the secret police agency the KGB, which undermined
political opponents at home and abroad during the days of the Communist
Soviet Union. The KGB also ran spy networks worldwide, and is where
Russian President Vladimir Putin spent much of his career before the
Soviet Union fell apart in 1991.
MORE: Ukraine examines ex-president's lavish lifestyle
Following
the February attacks on protesters, Ukraine's elected parliament voted
to oust Yanukovych from power. Members of Yanukovych's own party backed
the vote. The former president fled to Russia, which gave him safe
haven.
Ukraine Interior Minister Arsen Avakov says authorities in
Kiev have detained 12 members of a riot police unit on suspicion of
shooting protesters. Ukraine says Yanukovych ordered the snipers to go
after protesters; Yanukovych denied the charge in an interview with the
Associated Press.
"We examined one of the machine guns we found,
and found that eight people were killed from this gun only," Avakov said
at the news conference, referring to a weapon he said was used by a
sniper acting for Yanukovych.
"So-called anti-terrorist operations
that the former head of the security services, Oleksandr Yakymenko,
launched on Feb. 18 was actually a cover for mass murders," he said.
Yanukovych's Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko conspired with Yakymenko on this, he said.
"He gave (police) an order to use guns," Nalivaychenko said at the news conference.
"That
anti-terrorist operation that actually was a mass murder was directly
coordinated by former president Yanukovych," said Nalivaychenko.
Both
Yakymenko and Zakharchenko fled Ukraine in late February at the same
time as the former president. Ukraine has issued an arrest warrant for
Yanukovych.
Some analysts said it is unclear to what extent Yanukovych was involved.
"The
point is how much Yanukovych knew about what was going on," said Sophia
Pugsley, program coordinator at the European Council of Foreign
Relations in London. "He may or may not have known but I think that he
has enough involvement and influence to have blood on his hands."
Russia
said on Thursday it wanted answers from NATO on its activities in
eastern Europe after the Western military alliance promised to beef up
defenses for its eastern members, Reuters reported.
Russia's
takeover of Ukraine's Crimea province last month has led to what
European leaders say is the most serious crisis in East-West relations
since the Cold War.
Worried about Russian troop movements on the
Ukraine border, NATO, the U.S.-European military alliance, is coming up
with measures to reassure Eastern European countries that the same will
not happen to them. Poland has asked for more NATO troops, and others
are considering such requests.
Much of Eastern Europe including all of East Germany were under domination from the Soviet Union for decades after World War II.
Russian
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said any increase in NATO's permanent
presence in eastern Europe would violate a 1997 treaty on NATO-Russian
cooperation. He did not mention that Russia's invasion of Ukraine
violated a treaty it signed with Kiev and the United States and United
Kingdom in 1994, says NATO.
"We have addressed questions to the
north Atlantic military alliance. We are not only expecting answers, but
answers that will be based fully on respect for the rules we agreed
on," Lavrov told reporters at a briefing with his Kazakh counterpart.
Russian
recalled its ambassador to NATO for consultations Thursday, two days
after NATO member countries suspended cooperation with Russia over the
Ukraine crisis, Russian state media reported.
Russia's Foreign
Ministry said Thursday it had lodged a formal complaint about a German
minister's statement comparing Russia's annexation of Crimea with Adolf
Hitler's policies.
The ministry said that German Finance Minister
Wolfgang Schaeuble's comparison of last month's incorporation of Crimea
into Russia to Hitler's 1938 takeover of the Sudetenland region of
Czechoslovakia represented a "rude juggling of historic events and
facts."
Contributing: The Associated Press
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