{"id":3978,"date":"2015-05-02T05:13:49","date_gmt":"2015-05-02T05:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/informnapalm.org\/en\/?p=3978"},"modified":"2018-05-02T07:37:04","modified_gmt":"2018-05-02T07:37:04","slug":"more-evidence-against-incendiary-lies-about-odessa-2-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/informnapalm.org\/en\/more-evidence-against-incendiary-lies-about-odessa-2-may\/","title":{"rendered":"More Evidence against Incendiary Lies about Odesa 2 May"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is based on evidence compiled by the May 2 Group. The May 2 Group is a civic initiative and was formed soon after the tragedy with representatives from both sides of the conflict. It has worked tirelessly on studying the evidence, speaking with witnesses and the families of those killed, in order to establish what actually happened.<\/em><\/p>\n

Important findings about the fire in the Trade Union Building on May 2, 2014 demonstrate yet again the full cynicism of the Russian propaganda machine in its deliberate attempts to stir up hatred and desire through lies about a massacre that day.<\/p>\n

Most of the misinformation, and often deliberate lies, about the tragic confrontation between pro-Ukrainian and pro-federalism activists in Odesa on May 2, 2014 concern the fire in the Trade Union Building on Kulikovo Pole in which 42 people lost their lives. \u00a0Claims that this was a \u2018massacre\u2019 by Ukrainian \u2018radicals\u2019 with survivors beaten to death appeared in the Russian media at the outset and have been relentlessly pushed ever since.\u00a0 This narrative is demonstrably false making the Ukrainian authorities\u2019 failure to carry out an efficient and transparent investigation particularly frustrating.<\/p>\n

If the authorities seem oblivious to the negative impact of such inaction, the May 2 Group is not.\u00a0 This civic initiative was formed soon after the tragedy with representatives from both sides of the conflict.\u00a0 It has worked tirelessly on studying the evidence, speaking with witnesses and the families of those killed, in order to establish what actually happened.<\/p>\n

Group member and biochemist, Vladislav Balinsky has recently published important information regarding the fire itself.\u00a0 This supplements his earlier findings which seriously undermined the claim that pro-federalism activists had fled from enraged \u2018fascist radicals\u2019 into the Trade Union building.\u00a0 According to that version, the \u2018radicals\u2019 then set the building alight, and killed those who managed to escape.\u00a0 Some variants, including a detailed account given to RT<\/a> [Russia Today] by a supposed witness, claimed that the \u2018radicals\u2019 followed the pro-federalism activists into the building, up the stairs, and strangled some of the victims.<\/p>\n

Balinsky was one of the first people to enter the building after the fire and his photos are a vital source of information about what actually happened.<\/p>\n

Prior planning<\/i><\/p>\n

Balinsky presents<\/a> evidence indicating that at least some of the pro-federalism activists had set up barricades inside the Trade Union building just before the attack, with stockpiles of Molotov cocktails and inflammatory liquid for them.\u00a0 He suggests that they deliberately gathered people in advance to occupy and defend the building, with calls not only from the square outside the building, but also earlier on, for example, social networks.<\/p>\n

Some of the pro-federalism leaders, including Artem Davydchenko, used deception to get around 380 people into the building.\u00a0 People were phoned and asked to come with medical aid and other items after the very first clashes in the city centre.\u00a0 Witnesses have also reported that some of the passengers from the last stop of Tram No 18 were told that there was a bomb in the tram, and that they should hide in the Trade Union building.<\/p>\n

While not an official conclusion of the Group as a whole, some of its members believe<\/a> that there were conflicting views among the groups involved in the pro-federalism tent camp on Kulikovo Pole.\u00a0 Judging by messages on social media, etc., there appears to have been one group who initiated the attack on a pro-unity march in the centre of Odesa earlier in the afternoon.\u00a0 It seems likely that seizure and defence of the Trade Union building (providing a mirror image of the seizure by some Maidan supporters in Kyiv of the Trade Union building there) may have been part of that breakaway\u2019s group\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n

Armed defence<\/i><\/p>\n

A crowd of pro-Maidan activists did not just suddenly appear on Kulikovo Pole, nor on their way had they made any secret of their intention to forcibly remove the tent camp which the pro-federalism activists had set up some time back.\u00a0 Despite this, the police made no effort to cordon the tent camp off or in other ways avoid confrontation.<\/p>\n

It is certainly true that the crowd outside the Trade Union building was predominantly made up of pro-unity, pro-Maidan activists, and that those inside were mainly pro-federalism activists.\u00a0 Anybody hurling a Molotov cocktail at a building, as some of the pro-unity activists were doubtless doing, is behaving with criminal disregard for the risk to life this creates.<\/p>\n

The propaganda version, however, ignores certain key facts.<\/p>\n

Molotov cocktails were also being hurled both from the roof and from the foyer of the building.\u00a0 Firearms were also used by pro-federalism activists positioned on the roof and from five places within the building..<\/p>\n

Despite the danger this presented to anybody near the building, there is ample video footage and photographs showing desperate attempts by pro-unity activists to rescue those trapped in the building.\u00a0 It is clear from the reporting being streamed from outside that nobody had any idea of the real number of people inside.<\/p>\n