and voters. On 25 June 1995 during mass riots of Crimean Tatars who started so called "turf war" against Crimean gang "Bashmaki", policemen of "Berkut" from Poltava on the highway near Sudak, (Autonomous Republic of Crimea) opened fire with the intention to kill from automatic weapons which resulted in seven people being wounded and two killed. On 18 July 1995 Berkut was involved in a partially successful attempt to prevent the burial of Patriarch Volodymyr (Romaniuk) on the territory of St.Sophia monastery (surrounds the Saint Sophia's Cathedral). That day is known in Ukrainian history as the Black Tuesday. On 24 August (Independence Day of Ukraine) 1998 Berkut participated in dispersing the picketing of miners in front of the Luhansk "House of Soviets" (administration building of Luhansk regional government and legislation). The picketing of miners from Krasnodonvuhillia was caused by salary indebtedness for the last 2.5 years. At that time Luhansk Oblast was governed by Oleksandr Yefremov and Viktor Tikhonov. In 2004 and 2005, Berkut teams participated in many actions of Leonid Kuchma's government against the opposition during the Orange Revolution. Former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych has been accused, including by Amnesty International, of using the Berkut to threaten, attack, and torture Ukrainian protesters. Upon coming to power, Yanukovych had reversed oversight measures established during the Yushchenko administration to curb Berkut abuse of citizens, whereupon the special force "upped its brutality." Euromaidan On 30 November 2013, Berkut units in Kyiv violently dispersed protesters during the Euromaidan protest movement, and have since been involved in many other instances of brutality in suppressing the movement. On 27 January 2014, the Ministry of Defense announced sharp pay raises for military personnel. The Cabinet of Ministers adopted a secret resolution to increase the size of the Berkut force sixfold to 30,000. They were given more power and a reserve fund was set aside for additional ammunition. Former head of Security for the Ukrainian president, General Viktor Ivanovich Palivoda, stated in early February 2014 that those officers standing in the front lines of riot control received pay bonuses, and that they received bonuses for capturing protesters, included added years of service. Citizen disenfranchisement The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe confirmed witness accounts of voters being blocked from access to polls and being attacked along with local election officials who tried to frustrate the Berkut's practice of falsifying voters' ballots in favor of Yanukovych's Party