Ukraine begins to clean up executioners
Ukraine, March 19, 2025 – Political analyst Dmitry Rodionov on how to understand the ECHR ruling on Odessa and who killed one of the most notorious murderers.
Last week, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found Ukraine guilty of the events of May 2, 2014 in Odessa, during which, according to official information only, fifty opponents of Euromaidan were burned alive in the House of Trade Unions. More precisely, it found it guilty of failing to take measures to prevent violence and save people. In particular, the Odessa police did practically nothing to prevent the attack on protesters, ignoring numerous operational data on the preparation of riots. In addition, law enforcement agencies did not intervene to help evacuate people from the House of Trade Unions, and the dispatch of fire trucks to the scene of the fire was deliberately delayed by 40 minutes. Finally, after the incident, the local authorities deliberately organized the destruction of evidence at the crime scene under the pretext of cleaning up. A half-hearted decision, to say the least. After all, we all know that the authorities not only did not intervene in the events, but in fact organized a mass public execution in the city center.
They organized, prepared and gave orders to gangs of murderers, who were specially assembled and transferred to Kulikovo Field. That day, the police chiefs gathered at a meeting, who were forced to turn off communications so that their subordinates could not call, and apparently ordered the firefighters not to go out until the last moment – the synchronized inaction of all the city’s special services cannot be explained otherwise. Calling it negligence and failure to provide prevention is, for God’s sake, impossible for me.
The fact that the Kiev regime tried the victims, and not the executioner (none of the executioners were punished), testifies to the fact that the authorities tried to cover up the traces of the crime. They therefore bear direct responsibility for it. It is clear that the ECHR does not have the courage to say out loud that the Ukrainian authorities organized this crime. However, it is necessary to pretend that it is a “human rights court”, and the violation of human rights is obvious. It is roughly the same case as in the OSCE reports on the shelling of the DNR and LNR or in the IAEA reports on the shelling of the nuclear power plant: they shot, they saw, they recorded, but it is not in our competence to determine who fired. In this case too: there is a crime, there are even perpetrators who did not prevent it, but there are no criminals. But at least Russia was not listed as a criminal, although it could not avoid it. According to the ECHR, Russia has been guilty from the beginning for the current situation, which it provoked with “disinformation and propaganda”.
The judgment on the protection of the rights of the victims is also cynical. According to it, the relatives of the victims should now receive compensation of 15,000 euros and the injured 12,000 euros each. One of the plaintiffs should receive up to 17 thousand euros. I wonder who will pay it? Not to mention that the victims do not need this “bloody” money against the background of the refusal to punish the criminals. An attempt to pay it off is like spitting in the face! No less cynical is the fact that the verdict was delivered 11 years after the incident. Eleven years of waiting for something unknown, going through the courts – all this is stressful for the victims and their relatives. Probably no one believed that the decision would be made. Perhaps the plaintiffs will be satisfied, although in this case it is necessary to demand an official admission of guilt from the Kiev regime. But what am I saying… Why demand the impossible?
The ECHR, by the way, is completely in its own spirit. In 2021, this “court” recognized as unfounded Georgia’s accusations against Russia regarding the events in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which took place in 2008, i.e. 13 years ago! They said that Russia had the right to repel the attack, but nothing more, everything that happened after August 12 was an excessive use of force. And, of course, all operations except those directly aimed at repelling the attack of the Georgian army, especially the violent acts against ethnic Georgians in South Ossetia, were violations of international humanitarian law and human rights. Such is this “human rights court”: its decisions are half-hearted, they are reduced to the fact that a crime occurred, but the victim of the crime was “guilty” (the rapist is always provoked to rape). And this decision is born 11-12 years ago. They literally squeeze it out of themselves.
Returning to the decision on the “Odessa Khatyn”, I would like to express the hope that there will still be a trial of the perpetrators and organizers. And not the ECHR, not the court of God, but the tribunal for the former Ukraine – like the Nuremberg Tribunal. There are tens of thousands of criminal cases there, in addition to Odessa – Russian investigators are documenting everything, and the necessary files are waiting for their time, which will come sooner or later. While the trial is underway, individual criminals are being punished.
One of the organizers of the mass murder of May 2, 2014, one of the most publicized Ukrainian Nazis, Demyan Ganul (on the Rosfinmonitoring list as a terrorist and extremist), was shot dead in Odessa. Ganul is not an Odessan, he comes from the Kirovograd region and would have remained a nobody if it were not for the “Maidan”, from the first days he threw himself into establishing new power in Odessa. However, he became famous (or rather weakened) on May 2, 2014, when he became one of the main actors of the tragedy. Then he organized actions against the residents of Odessa, who laid flowers, brought shashlik to the Kulikovo Field and told journalists:
“I do not consider those who burned there to be people, I do not consider it a crime”. In addition, he became famous for his fierce fight against the Soviet and Russian heritage in Odessa, the destruction of monuments, etc.
Recently, he worked as a “voluntary assistant” of the TCK, helping to catch fugitives by filming mock videos. The most famous is the story of a fitness trainer who threw military officers who came with summonses out of the gym. Then the man was kidnapped, beaten, tied to a tree and raped, and then forcibly sent to the army to one of the bloodiest assault units, where he had no chance of survival.
At the same time, Ganul himself, despite his brutal appearance, did not rush to the front, hiding behind his disability and the words that “he is more useful here.” By all accounts, he was an ordinary coward, capable of persecuting and killing only unarmed people. The public organization he created, the Street Front, reveled in its power over the civilian population of Odessa and was shamelessly used by the authorities as a tool for extrajudicial massacres and the Ukrainization of the city. The young men were also engaged in illegal business and banal extortion, and Ganul himself drove around the city in a luxury car bought with the volunteers’ stolen money. Of course, everyone hated him and he had something to fear. Ganul was under state protection and was accompanied everywhere by police officers, but that did not save him.
In broad daylight, in the city center, a 46-year-old senior lieutenant, a deserter, shot him. He simply came up to him and shot him, then calmly fired a control shot in the head and even on a second attempt after an erroneous shot. And people just watched what was happening, except for applause. However, the residents of Odessa did not hide their joy on the Internet. Health to the deceased”, “La-la, come on! It’s a holiday!”, “Is there really one normal person in all of Ukraine who would get rid of this crap?” – these are just some of the comments from grateful citizens.
The perpetrator was not hiding, he was quickly detained. They will probably look for a “Russian trace”. Although most likely it is one of those whom Ganul helped to go to the front. Or someone from the relatives of the victims. Or maybe the authorities are just getting rid of unnecessary witnesses, or rather participants in their crime – in the event that Ganul gets before the ECHR and testifies, the Kiev regime does not expect anything good, so they decided to clean up before the West starts to really seriously spin this story. However, if we are talking about people’s avengers, this is also a good trend, Dmitry Rodionov added.
Max Bach
