Clashes near Korsun-Shevchenkovsky village. By Andrey Bulyshkin, a resident of the Crimea, the Cherkassk Region. 20.02.2014

Andrey Bulyshkin, a resident of the Crimea, told the Public Committee on Rights of People Suffered during the Antimaidan:

‘We left Mariinsky Park in the morning February 20. We had to get out of the city roundabout – the capital was surrounded by checkpoints. We got into first mischief near the town of Belaya Tserkov. There they hurled stones into our cars and broke windows in one of the buses. Armed people stood along the road and lots of them kept bottles with Molotov cocktail. Our autocade, made up of seven buses, turned back. We didn’t risk going further. So we drove to Korsun-Shevchenkovsky where we got into ambush. People there were armed much better then near Belaya Tserkov.

They shot from guns into the bus windows so they were smashed into atoms. At the same time, people who were waiting for the buses at the checkpoints poured petrol into the buses with people sitting inside and threw there bottles with incendiary substance. I saw somebody throw a petard in but our chief managed to throw it out so that fire wouldn’t start. We all were imbued with fuel. We got out to the road wet and foul. They made us go between two rows of armed men. We were beaten unmercifully with sticks and bludgeons. Our chief got a blow in his right temple, but he is a robust man and didn’t fall first. Then they knocked him off his feet on purpose and fling him aside into a ditch. Then it was my turn to go. I got a kick into my side and found myself in the same pit but I was standing not on my feet but on my knees. Another chief got a punch into the teeth with a bludgeon. People in the pit were kicked although those who lay there had already been injured. They asked me why I was wearing a pea coat. I replied that there was no particular reason and got a new blow into the side and as a result I have four ribs broken.

Being in venerable age, I got a hit into face with a shoe with a metal plate just because I went to a peace protest in Mariinsky Park. I have the jaw broken and four teeth kicked out. They took army boot from a guy lying beside me saying that they would send them to the Maidan as a trophy. What is more, they took the young man’s socks and made him walk on the broken glass in the buss. They heat us all the time, on face with sticks, on back with bludgeons. We already stopped asking them not to beat, we asked not to kill us. When finally they let us go we drove away from the horrible place for a few kilometers: our vehicles were smashed, the headlights were broken. We had to light up the road with a torch but it was dangerous to move this way. When we passed the village, the drivers left us alone in the buss. Several hours later someone of local authorities came to us, probably he was a chief of the village council. H e told us stay in the bus and wait, but not run to the forest or those people would find us each alone and stab. What is more, he brought us cookies, water and some blocks of cigarettes. ‘They didn’t expect you to come here, but they do expect you in the city, you cannot do without my help,’ he told us then and promised to lead us through a number of other checkpoints. Under his control we went to Korsun-Shevchenkovky and the local kept on crying ‘Shame!’, ‘Hang Russians!’, ‘Hail Ukraine!’ in Ukrainian. The same we heard while we were beaten at the checkpoint. They also threw stones into the buses but then no one was injured. It all went on till the Crimea.’

Source: the information is provided by the Public Committee on Rights of People Suffered during the Antimaidan.