It is May 2 again, and by tradition on this day Russian propagandists dust off their falsehoods about the incident in Odesa on May 2, 2014. We would like to respond with the actual timeline of events, which Anton Pavlushko compiled on his Facebook page in 2015. This information destroys all attempts to twist the facts of the tragedy organized by Kremlin in Odesa.

The lovers of the “Russian World” often use the fire in the Odesa Trade Unions building on May 2 as some kind of a life-changing event. There’s a Russian Ivan sitting on the traditional Russian stove somewhere in Khabarovsk, watching his TV as it shows the Maidan events and all the crimes of the “Kiev junta”, and then the Odesa fire happens, and now he can no longer sit idly, so he goes and signs up for pro-Russian “militia”.

The opinion on the Ukrainian side is also somewhat strange. It is assumed that were it not for this event, everything would go in some different direction. Obviously, it all depended on Russian TV having convenient visuals.

And then there are the voices of Crimean “vatniks”, who vote to join Russia in the March 16 referendum, then six weeks pass with them living under the Russian flag, but only the Odesa incident makes them decide to leave Ukraine.

So, let us recall the timeline of events before the fire in Odesa:

• February 19 – Fire breaks out in the Trade Unions Building in Kyiv after the unsuccessful assault by police forces. At least 2 people die (other sources claim 11 or more dead).

Photo – Facebook Evgen Buderatsky

• February 20-22 –  More than 50 protesters are shot dead. The total number of people killed during the Maidan events is over 100.

• February 22-23 – Russian Army begins the annexation of Crimea (Editor’s note: we recently published a large-scale report about the hidden troops movement and military field camps of one of the Russian Army units in the Crimea.)

Photo from the social network profile of Ilias Khazirovich Midayev – driver of the support platoon of the special forces battalion (military unit 27777), port «Crimea».

• February 27 – Russian special forces seize the buildings of the Crimean Parliament and Council of Ministers. (Editor’s note:  the chronology of events near the Crimean Parliament on February 26, 2014 was reconstructed to the minute by the Prosecutor’s office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. It was found that regular Russian Army troops, dressed as local civilians, were in the crowd among local pro-Russian activists demonstrating for the separation of Crimea from Ukraine.)

• March 1 – At a pro-Russian rally in Kharkov, a Moscow journalist named Mikhail (nickname “Mika Ronkainen”) hoists the Russian flag over the Regional Council building. The rallies with the participation of “tourists” from the Russian cities of Kursk and Belgorod take place in the city.

• March 13 – Mass beating of the participants of a pro-Ukrainian rally in Donetsk. The Ukrainian activist Dmytro Chernyavsky is killed. It was established later that many of the pro-Russian “protesters” were bussed from Rostov Oblast.
• March 15 – a Crimean Tatar activist, who went missing on March 2-3, is found dead with the signs of torture.

• March 16 – Motorola, the future prominent pro-Russian warlord, but at that time unknown to anybody, is spotted at a pro-Russian rally in Kharkov. (Editor’s note – he can be seen in the video at 5:52.)
• March 18 –  Sergey Kokurin, the Ukrainian warrant officer, is killed by Russians during the assault on the Ukrainian map-making unit in Simferopol.

• April 7 – A Russian soldier kills Ukrainian Major Stanislav Karachevsky in Crimea.

The same day in Donetsk the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR) is proclaimed, and the “referendum on self-determination” is scheduled for May 11.

• April 12 – the armed militia unit led by Igor Strelkov-Girkin, seizes the police building in Sloviansk.

• April 12-14 – Russian fighters kill four Ukrainians near Sloviansk: two officers of the Security Service of Ukraine and two civilians.
• April 21 – Horlivka City Council member Volodymyr Rybak and student from Kyiv Yury Popravko are found in Siverskyi Donets River tortured to death.

• April 25 – a Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter is destroyed at the Kramatorsk airfield.

• April 28 – the so-called “Luhansk People’s Republic” (LPR) is proclaimed in Luhansk.
• May 2 – in the morning, two Ukrainian Mi-24 helicopters are shot down near Slovyansk, 5 crew members are killed.

And only after all of that, the fire in Odessa happened.

If you hear someone saying that they were upset by the May 2 events in Odessa, remind them that there were more reasons to be upset before that.

If someone took up arms against Ukrainians after the Odessa fire, the timeline makes it clear that they didn’t care about all the Ukrainians who died earlier.

The events in Odessa on the May 2 were just ideological ammunition in the war of Russia against Ukraine. However, Russians started killing Ukrainians with ordinary ammunition well before the May 2.

Translated by Maryna Lyutenko, edited by Max Alginin