Watch the video above: People roam around ousted Ukraine President Yanukovych’s now vacant residence on Feb. 22.
Viktor Yanukovych says he is still the president of Ukraine. He made that declaration once again on Friday from inside Russia – where he fled to after being ousted from office last week as a warrant was issued for his arrest.
He’s vowing to return to his post and, presumably, the lavish estate he left behind. He may also be back against his own will, now that the Ukrainian parliament is requesting his extradition from Russia.
But in his absence his luxurious residence known as the Mezhyhirya, about 30 kilometres north of Kyiv,is the scene of an major investigation into his wealth, his leadership , his ties to Russia and the directives he may have issued against opposition protesters who filled the capital’s Independence Square for three months.
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Journalists and activists are now carefully sifting through thousands of documents found in the Mezhyhirya and tossed in the water of the Kyiv Sea, a massive reservoir on the banks of which his estate is located.
Nearly 1,600 documents have been photographed or scanned and uploaded online. They’re being hosted on a website called Yanukovych Leaks – a reference to whistleblower site WikiLeaks.
Vlad Lavrov is a journalist with the English-language Kyiv Post and one of about 50 people working 24/7 to make sure the documents fished out of the reservoir are preserved as evidence – proof, they say, Yanukovych was guilty of corruption.
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He said they recovered 200 folders from the water, each of those containing about 500 pages worth of documents.
“Most of them weren’t submerged in the sea for very long, so they were not really damaged that much, while others were … underwater, I would say, half a day. So, some of them are still wet.”
Lavrov said all of the documents have been scanned and those that needed special care have been handled by a team of volunteer librarians and archivists cautiously drying them or treating them with a special brine to prevent further damage.
Journalists Natalia Sedletska and Katya Gorchinskaya shared some images of recovered documents on Twitter. Story continues below.
One of the largest categories in the trove details transactions related to the construction and renovations at Mezhyhirya.
The residence, a former monastery, has been around since 1935. Yanukovych has lived there since 2002, when he first became prime minister.
The property’s owned by a member of Yanukovych’s inner circle.
“One of our main goals would be now to document fully how much money was spent on construction of that residence,” Lavrov said.
Other examples of extraordinary expenses include contracts for pottery and tableware: “about 100 Euros of just one coffee cup,” Lavrov said.
There was also quite the gardening bill – 1 million Euros for tree planting on the property.
“Not to buy them, just for planting them,” he said.
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An example of some of the documents uploaded to Yanukovych Leaks. Story continues below.
But Lavrov said the what’s more controversial is evidence revealing massive bank transaction to no one.
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As previously published, there were also documents containing profiles of prominent journalists and activists.
Lavrov said those were the first documents they paid attention to.
“They were documents for the guards of the residence to be aware if some journalists or activists come near the residence. This was a list of so-called ‘persona non grata.'”
But there were others detailing how authorities were to handle the thousands of protesters in the heart of Kyiv.
“First of all it outlined the increase in the number of riot police in town,” he said. “Basically it gave out the number of riot police, how many interior ministry troops, how many snipers … how police were to act.”
He said the documents emphasize that the operations were not a “crackdown on the mass protests,” rather “an anti-terrorist operation.”
There are now about 1,600 documents posted on the Yanukovych Leaks website.
The group has already signed over control of the trove to the prosecutor general to build a case against Yanukovich and his allies, but they’ll continue their preserving and publishing the documents online.
Lavrov said he expects the rest to be online within the next week or two.
With files from The Associated Press
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