Updated

Ukraine's ousted president has testified in the trial of five former special forces policemen charged with fatally shooting scores of demonstrators, and denied giving orders for them to shoot at the protesters.

Over three days in February 2014, 72 protesters died on the Maidan square, most shot by police or snipers. There were also 13 deaths among the police and the Ukrainian special forces. The shootings in February 2014 were the bloody climax of months of demonstrations in Kiev against President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia days later.

Yanukovych, who gave testimony to a Kiev court on Monday from a courtroom in Russia, said he did not give orders to his forces to open fire on protesters and "could not have possibly given such orders."