The EuroMaidan protests (also known as the Revolution of Dignity) were sparked by then President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision not to sign a trade association agreement with the EU. This decision followed an offer by Vladimir Putin of major discounts on energy prices and fifteen billion dollars in aid to Ukraine, with Yanukovych seemingly lured by these promises and frightened at the prospect of alienating Russia. Admittedly, the EU had been inflexible about accommodating Russia in the trade deal, even though it would clearly impact Ukraine’s economic ties with Russia.
To many Ukrainians, tariffs were beside the point. Yanukovych’s decision symbolised an unwelcome choice about Ukraine’s future on a Russian, as opposed to Western, path. Amateurishly, Yanukovych rejected the deal at the very time of year when activists would gather on local squares, or Maidans, to remember the struggle of the 2004 Orange Revolution. As such, the type of people who were disgruntled already had plans to meet and gather, making it much easier to bring them and others to the streets, recreating the protests across the country. Hundreds of thousands joined in the EuroMaidan, protesting all over the country, from Chernivtsi to Donetsk.
Over the winter of 2013/2014, the protestors remained steadfast despite, or perhaps because of, the Ukrainian riot police’s violent response. At least 130 people lost their lives during the Revolution of Dignity, most of them shot by interior ministry and special forces snipers in a series of events that quickly overtook the political manoeuvrings of those jostling for power. Eventually, just thirty-six hours after more than sixty protestors were shot on the Kyiv Maidan and twenty-four hours after an EU-brokered agreement for early elections, President Yanukovych realised he had lost the confidence of the police, much of his party, and his security services and decided to flee Kyiv for Rostov, Russia. In the chaotic power vacuum that followed, opposition parties represented at the Maidan and in the Rada formed an interim government. Russia protested the legitimacy of this action, characterising the demonstrators and the interim government as far-right extremists in the vein of the WWII Ukrainian nationalist leader, Stepan Bandera.14