A leaked phone call has been released between Estonia’s Foreign Minister, Urmas Paet and the EU’s Foreign Policy Chief, Catherine Ashton, that poses fresh questions around the use of snipers in Kyiv during protests in late February.
In the conversation, said to have taken place a week ago, Paet notes:
“It’s really disturbing to know the new coalition doesn’t want to investigate what exactly happened. So there is a stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers it was not Yanukovych but somebody from the new coalition.”
Estonia’s Foreign Minister has since stressed that in this conversation he merely relayed opinions he’d heard and wasn’t drawing any conclusions. In a press conference on Wednesday he had this to say on the leaked phone call:
“I didn’t give any evaluation. I stated that this information was going around. Anyone can put together things like that. The conversation was held a week ago. But it was put up now, a week later, now when the new government in Ukraine has started work.”
Estonia has emphasised that Paet didn’t blame Ukraine’s opposition for Kyiv’s sniper killings, during his comments.
Talinn also called into question how some media outlets have since interpreted his words.
Ukraine’s interim government has now started an investigation into the bloody incident, for which both sides blame each other.