Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine

On November 21, 2013 Ukraine's government under President Viktor Yanukovych suspended preparations to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union. That night, protesters began gathering on Independence Square (the Maidan) in Kyiv. After riot police beat demonstrators on November 30, the crowd swelled to hundreds of thousands, and the demands widened from European integration to an end to corruption and to Yanukovych's rule. On February 21 and 22, 2014 he fled the capital, and parliament voted to remove him from office.¹³

The protests grew out of a tug-of-war between Russia and the West over Ukraine, which had been independent since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. Many in the west of the country wanted closer ties with Europe, while Russia under Vladimir Putin pressed Ukraine to join its own customs union and offered a loan package of about 15 billion dollars. Yanukovych's decision to turn east, together with widespread frustration over corruption, set off the protests. In January 2014 parliament passed sweeping laws restricting protest, which escalated the confrontation. Barricades, burning tires and street battles followed.¹³

The worst violence came between February 18 and 20, when snipers and security forces killed about 100 protesters, remembered as the 'Heavenly Hundred', along with a number of police. A deal brokered by European foreign ministers on February 21 collapsed within hours as Yanukovych left Kyiv, eventually reaching Russia. Parliament voted by 328 votes on February 22 to remove him and to hold new elections. Russia, which called the change an illegal coup, sent unmarked troops into Crimea in late February, and annexed it in March 2014, which most countries did not recognize. A separatist war in the Donbas began in April. Ukraine signed the Association Agreement in 2014, and the conflict led to the full-scale Russian invasion of 2022.¹³