Former Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov spoke about the plans of the Euromaidan participants to kill the then President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. An interview with the ex-head of government was published on the Strana.ua website.
According to Azarov, when Yanukovych flew from Kiev to Kharkov on February 21, the protesters did not hide their intentions to “physically destroy” the president.
“He hardly left the presidential administration. The head of the Presidential Administration Andrei Klyuev also got out with great difficulty. I could not get through to either the Minister of Internal Affairs or the head of the security service,” the former prime minister recalls.
All these people went to the residence of Yanukovych “Mezhyhirya” near Kiev, and the Presidential Security Service reported that a crowd of 5 thousand people was moving there, Azarov continued. “And this crowd included a specially prepared group that was supposed to physically destroy Yanukovych after the seizure of Mezhyhirya,” the former prime minister said.
To “hold” the residence, one would have to use weapons to kill, which would lead to “very serious bloodshed,” Azarov said. “The organizers [of the Maidan] were aiming and disposed towards this, they were not embarrassed by this. Yanukovych knew about this, so he decided to evacuate to Kharkov,” he concluded.
Euromaidan – massive anti-government demonstrations that took place in the winter of 2013-2014 on Independence Square in Kiev and other cities and ended with the overthrow of Yanukovych. More than 100 people were killed in clashes between protesters and security forces.