Ukraine Protests: Leaked EU Phone Call Suggests Kiev Snipers Were Hired by Opposition Coalition

A phone conversation suggesting snipers who shot protesters in Kiev might have acted on the orders delivered by the opposition coalition - not former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich - has been leaked online.

The phone conversation features Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet telling EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton his suspicions regarding sniper attacks on protestors that took place in Kiev in February.

According to the description of the related video uploaded on YouTube, the call was taped by officers of the Ukrainian security services (SBU), loyal to Yanukovich.

Paet is heard telling Ashton that there was evidence both protesters and security forces came under sniper fire during the deadly protests in the Ukrainian capital last month.

During the conversation Paet airs the possibility that members of the opposition coalition might have had something to do with the shootings.

"What was quite disturbing, this same Olga told that, well, all the evidence shows that people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides," Paet is heard as saying.

"She also showed me some photos, she said that she is medical doctor, she can say it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it's really disturbing that the new coalition, that they don't want to investigate what exactly happened."

The woman named "Olga", cited by Paet, is believed to be head of the Maidan medical service, Olga Bogomolets.

"So there is a stronger and stronger understanding that behind snipers it was not Yanukovych, it was somebody from the new coalition," Paet says.

"I think we do want to investigate. I didn't pick that up, that's interesting. Gosh," Ashton replies.

The Estonian foreign ministry confirmed the recording was genuine and the 11-minute conversation took place on 26 February.

"The recording of a telephone conversation between Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and High Representative Catherine Ashton that has been leaked online is authentic," the ministry said.

"We reject the claim that Paet was giving an assessment of the opposition's involvement in the violence. "

"It is extremely regrettable that phone calls are being intercepted," Paet added. "The fact that this phone call has been leaked is not a coincidence."

A spokesperson for Ashton refused to comment.

The recording was first picked up by Russia's state-funded news outlets Russia Today and The Voice of Russia and plays in the hands of Putin's rhetoric that dangerous radicals and extremists are rampant in Ukraine following the revolution.

Earlier this week, Putin claimed that Moscow's military intervention in eastern Ukraine and Crimea would be legitimate and justified on humanitarian grounds because ethnic Russians are under threat from violent Ukrainian nationalists.