User:Hecatonkheir/sandbox

=Oles Buzina=

Biography
In the course of his journalism career he worked for a number of Ukrainian media :
 * Newspaper Kievskiye Vedomosti (1993-2005)
 * Newspaper 2000 (2005-2006)
 * Various magazines as Natali, EGO Ukraine, XXL Ukraine
 * From October 2006 was an anchorman of "Teen-liga" show on Inter (TV channel)
 * Newspaper Segodnya, where had his own column and blog since 2007
 * An an expert participated in reality-show Bachelor on STB (TV channel) from 2011
 * From 2012 is author and host of "Po sledam prashurov" (eng. Trailing the Ancestors) show on K-1 TV channel.
 * In January 2015 he became editor-in-chief of Segodnya newspaper where he worked all these years . But already in March he resigned protesting the censorship of newspaper's owners, limited control over newspaper's policy, total absence of controll over newspaper's website and imposed ban on his appearance on TV and interviews with the press.
 * He has his own website, where some of his books are available online as well as a number of blogs.

He also was invited as a guest to numerous talk shows in Russia. Some of his articles were published in Russian media.

As a writer he published 8 books about prominent figures and history of Ukraine and Russia, and fiction.

Political and public views
Oles Buzina had anti-Orange Revolution, anti-Euromaidan, anti-fascist.

On 20 January 2006 he claimed that being a writer he is aware of political censorship in post-Orange Revolution Ukraine, as some publishers were afraid to release his books.

In May 2009 he campaigned for adoption of a series of laws prohibiting Neo-Nazi organizations, propaganda of Nazism and ideological legacy of Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists as a totalitarian fascist party. This initiative was suported by Borys Kolesnikov, one of the leaders of Party of Regions.

In May 2009 National Expert Commission of Ukraine on the Protection of Public Morality launched an investigation against Oles Buzina as a result of complaint filed by Petro Kononenko, director of Institute of Ukrainology. Kononenko stated that Oles Buzina "discredited Ukraines most outstanding Ukrainian public figures and picks everything that's shameful in our history". As of April 2009 Buzina was sued 11 times and every single time judges ruled out in his favour. In 2000 he was physically assaulted right after winning in court one of these cases. Some of these legal actions saw Ukrainian politicians as plaintiffs: Pavlo Movchan, Volodymyr Yavorivsky. On 22 March 2009 he had a cake thrown at him by a FEMEN activist, that declared his only fiction book sexist. Oles Buzina had traditional views on marriage and was rated 4th in the "Homophobe of the Year - 2011" list by the Ukrainian gay forum.

He identified himself as both Ukrainian and Russian, though having ethnic Ukrainian parents.

His views on Ukraine expressed on multiple occasions during years of journalism and political commentary could be summarized as follows:
 * Ukraine should be an independant state and not be part of Russia "How I feel about reunification with Russia? Imagine it did happen... Our botchers would have started blaming Russia for all our internal woes, once again. Personally, I think Ukraine should continue to be a sovereign state. We have to learn to be adults and accept responsiblility for own actions."


 * Ukraine should be a federation. Long before the Ukrainian Civil War Oles Buzina stated that federalization is the best way to deal with the differences between Galician and Donbass mentality. "Inhabitants of these different regions are grass roots federalists. I think in the future Ukraine will become a federation like Germany, Russia, Switzerland or USA. This will smooth away most of the conflicts."
 * It should be a bilingual state, with Ukrainian and Russian as official languages."One can understand Shevchenko only speaking both languages. People obstructing the bilingual state in Ukraine are only destroying the path to the original Kobza player(Shevchenko)"
 * He was in favour of alliance of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan."The creation of a Eurasian Union will favour the developement of external economic and commercial ties, will increase the exports of Ukraine and raise the living standard of people."


 * He was against joining the European Union. "As soon as Galicians will understand that right after the hypothetical joining the EU, they will be overwhelmed by suits of former Polish owners of houses in Lvov, they will want to stay as far from it as possible... If we join the EU, we'll become another incarnation of Romania or Poland, a second-rate country without independant foreign policy."

His political stance is criticised for a comment to Den (newspaper) that he allegedly gave in 1999: "My ideal is recreation of the Russian Empire, but I am forced to adapt myself to the ugly conditions of creating the independent Ukraine."

Allthough he was claiming it was a fabrication and he never said that.

Murder
Appearing on a Russian TV show Oles Buzina said that he receives constant death threats back at home and is not sure he'll live long.

On 14 April 2015, two days before the murder Oles Buzina personal data, including his address and mobile phone number, were published in "Purgatory" section on a Ukrainian website "Mirotvorets", that labelled him a "separatist". After the assassination the information was deleted.

Reactions
EU, Germany, USA, UNESCO, OSCE, Amnesty International have demanded an independent investigation of the murder of Ukrainian journalists Oles Buzina and Sergey Sukhobok and politician Oleg Kalashnikov.

British Foreign Office spokesperson told on Friday 17 April the Foreign Office typically did not comment on situations unless they were linked with British subjects. Even though this rule was not applied in some other cases.

=Maidan=

Maidan investigation
The Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, constitued the International Advisory panel to oversee the investigations into the violent incidents which took place in Ukraine from 30 November 2013.

The Maidan investigation, launched by new Ukrainian authorities received a lot of criticism from the international community. On 31 March 2015 independent experts have declared that the investigation into violent incidents during the Maidan demonstration failed to satisfy European human rights standards. And the Panel concluded that, as a result of investigative deficiencies, substantial progress had not been made in the Maidan investigations. The criticism centers around few critical issues:
 * Maidan inquiry lacked practical independence, as all the prosecutors, including the General Prosecutor of Ukraine Vitaly Yarema,  minister of interior Arsen Avakov  , head of Security Service of Ukraine Valentyn Nalyvaichenko  personally took part in the uprising or were organizing it.
 * The unco-operative attitude on the part of the Ministry of Interior and of the State Security Service of Ukraine had a negative impact on the investigation, obstruction by the Ministry of Interior, “which seriously impeded progress in this key investigation”. In return Avakov's Ministry of Internal affairs only accused the Panel of being "dishonest" and "biased".

Reuters examination into Maidan probes
On 10 October 2014 Reuters published a report about their examination of Ukraine's probes into the Maidan shootings. They have uncovered "serious flaws" in the case against Berkut (special police force) officers arrested by the new Ukrainian government and charged with murder of 39 unarmed protesters. For example, as Reuters' own investigation found out, the senior among arrested officers was missing right hand after an accident 6 years ago. This dismissed main evidence presented by prosecutor, a photograph of a man holding his rifle with both hands. Other "flaws" according to Reuters included the fact that no one was charged with killing policemen and that the prosecutors and the minister in charge of the investigation all took part in the uprising. For example, the General Prosecutor of Ukraine Vitaly Yarema is known for hitting a traffic policeman in the face during the protests, which he denied, but a video of the incident appeared later and confirmed his involvement in the attack.