2023-11-21 09:50:29
On November 21, 2013, “Euromaidan” began, a revolution that would lead to Ukraine’s rapprochement with Europe and precipitate a long conflict with Russia.
In kyiv, the Independence Square, more commonly known as “Maidan”is a ode to modern Ukrainian history. At the top of a sixty meter high column, a sculpture of a woman holding a branch of rosehip represents theindependence of the nation at the fall of the USSR. On the ground, dozens of metal panels show the plates of a graphic novel which retraces the major stages of the revolution that shook the country, right here, ten years ago. Right next door, hundreds, thousands of small pennants planted on a lawn honor the memory of fallen soldiers.
On this rainy day, the crowd did not meet on Maidan, but under Maidan. An air raid alert forced passersby to seek refuge in the maze of the metro stationbetween stalls selling Ukrainian and European flags as well as rolls of toilet paper bearing the image of Vladimir Putin.
Charles Michel in kyiv for ten years of the Maidan uprising
The President of the European Council Charles Michel announced this Tuesday to be arrived in kyiv to mark ten years of the historic pro-European Maidan uprising. “Happy to be back in kyiv, among my friends,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Just before his arrival, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky declared that the Maidan revolution, named following the central square in kyiv where protesters gathered, was, in his opinion, the “first victory” in the war once morest the Russian invader.
On November 21, 2013, President Viktor Yanukovych caused the shock and anger of part of the population by refusing, under pressure from the Kremlin, to sign an association agreement with the EU.
At the beginning, a restricted demonstration
In the crowd: Dmytro Markov, 29 ans, a regular here. “At the beginning, the demonstration was very limited, made up mainly of young people and students. For us, it was a way of tell the government — which was partially authoritarian and pro-Russian — that we demand our integration into the European Union (EU)”, says this doctoral student in history.
It was the November 21, 2013. That day, the president Viktor Ianoukovitch provokes the astonishment and anger of part of the population by refusing, under pressure from the Kremlin, to sign an association agreement with the EU. Civil society figures quickly called to gather on Independence Square to protest once morest this decision.
There are more of them every day. “We were like one heart beating in unison,” recalls Dmytro Markov, a woolen hat pulled over his blond curls.
©AFP
Powerful response from power
Rather than backtracking and acceding to “Euromaidan” demands, the power opts for force and sends the “Berkut”, the riot police, to dislodge the thousands of demonstrators by beating them. This government violence shocks the population and the movement turns into a massive revolt.
Iryna Matviyishyn, at the time a journalism student in Lviv, in western Ukraine, decided to take the train with her friends to take part in the protests shaking the capital. “It was unimaginable, I had never seen so many people,” she remembers. “We slept in Maidan in tents with people from all over the country, young and old, people of all social classes and all faiths. It was like a fantasy vision of an ideal country.”
©AFP
“Freedom Revolution”
Under the snow and the blows, demonstrators erect barricades, form self-defense groups and organize themselves into “Veche”, popular assemblies aimed at establishing the broad outlines of their political demands.
For his part, the government passes repressive laws and seeks to crush the revolution in blood by replacing rubber bullets with real ammunition. The demonstrators fall by the dozens and Euromaidan becomes a “revolution of dignity”. No more questions for the protesters to simply demand a rapprochement with Europe. They want the fall of the regime.
“If I had known that Maidan would lead to a war, would I still have gone to demonstrate? I think so (…)”
Moscow’s response
During the night of February 21 to 22, 2014three months following the start of the demonstrations, Viktor Ianoukovitch fled Kiev by helicopter and ends up exiled in Russia. The dreaded “Berkut” are disbanded and the association agreement with the EU is finally signed.
But the reaction from Moscow will not be long in coming. Crimea is annexed illegally the same year and separatists pro-Russians open a front in the Donbas region, prelude to the invasion of February 24, 2022. “If I had known that Maidan would lead to a war, would I still have gone to demonstrate?” asks Iryna Matviyishyn, now an independent journalist. “I think so, because without Maidan we would live in a dictatorship.”
A European future
“Without Euromaidan, there would be no EU accession process.”
A favorable opinion still to be approved (or not) by the twenty-seven member countries of the EU on the occasion of a summit which will take place in Brussels in mid-December.
“If there had been no Euromaidan, there would have been no European future for Ukraine,” emphasizes Oleksandr Kraiev, specialist in international relations within the Ukrainian Prism research center. “It was a decisive moment where we had to choose between the West or Russia. Without Euromaidan, there would therefore be no EU accession process.”
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