EuroMaidan increases security after bomb cripples two protesters

Early afternoon on Feb. 6, Roman Dzvinivskiy, a young man who wore markings identifying him as a militant Right Sector member, was approached by an unknown man and handed a small box. The man, who spoke Ukrainian, praised his group — which has engaged in clashes with police — for heroism.

“Here’s a present for you, guys,” he said.

Dzivinskiy brought the box to the fifth floor of the Trade Union House, the part of the revolutionary headquarters where the Right Sector is located. The building has been controlled by the protesters since its seizure on Dec. 1.

When Dzivinskiy attempted to open the box, it exploded.

Dzivinskiy, who is just 20, saw his left hand blow up in shreds. By his side at the time was Nazar Derzhilo, a 16-year-old who arrived to Kyiv just hours before the incident. He was hit by the blast wave so powerful that one of his eyes was torn out of its socket and his skull cracked, according to a member of the opposition and an independent activist who monitors such incidents.

Olha Aivazovska, head of OPORA civic group, who spent hours with the victim, said that Derzhilo needed a metal plate inserted in his skull to protect it, as a result of the blast. He also has severe face injuries that might require reconstructive surgery, she said.

Both victims came from Lviv Oblast.

The wounded young men were rushed to two hospitals for emergency medical help, only to be taken out of there and sent to Lviv hours later because of security concerns. Olesya Orobets, a member of parliament with the opposition Batkivshchyna Party, said there was an attempt by the police to seize the duo in the hospital because their alleged association with the Right Sector.

Orobets said she believed that the whole operation was an attempt to set up the Right Sector as an extremist organization who are preparing explosive materials against the government in their headquarters.

“Three sources of mine have confirmed that it was a setup,” said Orobets.

She also said that the Kyiv police department was preparing to start an investigation into illegal handling of explosive materials by the protesters. Kyiv police spokeswoman Olga Bilyk confirmed that the police started such an investigation, but said they were not ready to charge anyone.

The Interior Ministry posted its first statement about the incident shortly after the explosion, indicating that it happened on the fifth floor of the Trade Unions House and saying they had no access to it to investigate. At the time, there was no information from the protesters about the location of the incident. Bilyk said the police received the information about the exact location from the doctor in the hospital who handled the patients.

But Dzvinivskiy’s lawyer, Yevheniya Zakrevska, said the patients were unconscious for hours, and she was the first person to talk to her patient the evening following the incident.

On Feb. 7, the Interior Ministry released another statement, saying that Independece Square — the epicenter of the anti-government EuroMaidan movement — was a dangerous place to be because of the criminal groups that work there under cover of the “right-wing ideology.” They implied that the danger came from the right-wing activists who handled explosives in the Trade Union building.

But Orobets said the evidence points to a professionally made explosive device. “Judging from the injuries, it is not a homemade explosive. The force of the explosion shows that it was from military arsenal,” said Orobets.

Zakrevska, the lawyer, says that the man who delivered the box was specifically looking for someone from the Right Sector, one of the most radical units on EuroMaidan who have openly said they will not stop at anything less than toppling President Viktor Yanukovych. The man who made the delivery asked questions to make sure he was picking the intended recipients.

Yuriy Tyrtyshniy, a 50-year old EuroMaidan activist from Lviv, was one of the four men who carried Derzhilo outside after the explosion.

“We tried to catch a taxi and several drivers denied to take us,” Tyrtyshniy said. “Nazar (Derzhilo) was on the verge of death. His face was burned, bloody, he was in pain, but still all he worried about was his mother who would be devastated by his death.”

“We were afraid to leave him even for a second, because police would have taken him,” added Tyrtyshniy .

The day before, 16-year-old Derzhilo told his parents he was going out to get some bread, and ran off to get a plane to Kyiv. He called his parents from the train to inform them about his real plan. He was injured just a couple of hours after arriving to Kyiv, Aizavovska of OPORA said.

Kyiv Post lifestyle editor Olga Rudenko can be reached at rudenko@kyivpost.com and staff writer Solomiya Zinevych at zinevych@kyivpost.com.