The Ukrainian Interior Ministry has officially apologized and launched an internal inquiry after a video showing Berkut special forces ridiculing a naked Kiev rioter in freezing temperatures appeared on the internet.
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The statement published on the ministry’s official website called
the officers’ actions “unacceptable.”
The responsible officers will be found and “may even face
criminal liability” for their behavior, Interior Ministry
spokesman Sergey Burlakov told Vesti newspaper.
The controversial video was posted on the web on Thursday. It
shows a man wearing only boots surrounded by a group of officers
in the street.
Despite temperatures falling below -10 Celcius, the masked
officers did not allow the man into the police van for over a
minute.
The Berkut troops verbally abused the detainee, handing him an
ice axe and posing for pictures with him.
Cuts and bruises can be clearly seen on the man in the footage.
He was reportedly a Grushevskogo Street protester.
Warning: The video below contains graphic nudity
An unnamed Berkut officer told Vesti that the man in the video
deserved harsh treatment because the police have been after him
for the past two days.
“He was one of the most accurate throwers. He tossed Molotov
cocktails at us and a lot of our guys got seriously hurt. We were
tracking him for a long time, but eventually caught and undressed
him. He was our ‘souvenir,’ a warning to the others,” the
officer said.
Clashes between rioters and police in Kiev this week have seen
the most violent manifestation of protests thus far. The
demonstrations initially began two months ago after the
government refused to sign an EU integration deal.
Two protesters have been killed and over 300 injured in the
fighting, according to the opposition.
The Interior Ministry says that more than 250 of its officers
have been wounded over the past four days. Over 100 of them have
been hospitalized.