Revolution of Dignity

• 1. Introduction

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  The Revolution of Dignity began not with a battle but with a broken promise. On a November night in 2013, crowds gathered in Maidan Nezalezhnosti, Independence Square, in central Kyiv. President Viktor Yanukovych had just refused to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union. That refusal, made at a summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, set in motion a chain of events that would leave 108 civilian protesters and 13 police officers dead and ultimately force Yanukovych from power in the space of three months.

  What made Ukrainians willing to stand in a barricaded tent camp through winter, face down riot police, and risk live gunfire? What role did Russia play in the crackdown? And how did a dispute over a trade deal become the largest democratic mass movement in Europe since 1989?

• 2. The Deal That Broke

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  Yanukovych's government had been negotiating an association agreement with the European Union since 2012. The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, had overwhelmingly approved moving forward with the deal. But Russia, Ukraine's biggest trade partner at the time, applied economic pressure and ran a propaganda campaign against it.

  The financial stakes were stark. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov had asked for 20 billion euros in loans and aid. The EU offered 610 million euros. Russia countered with a package worth 15 billion dollars, plus cheaper gas prices. Russia also imposed no demands for regulatory or legal reform, while the EU required significant changes to Ukrainian law.

  At the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius, Yanukovych walked away from the EU deal. Western-oriented Ukrainians took to the square in protest. Demonstrators who gathered initially were peaceful, but January brought a turning point: Yanukovych's supporters in parliament passed laws designed to suppress the protests, and the demonstrations turned violent. By February 2014, what had started as an argument about economic alignment had become a referendum on government corruption, police brutality, and the country's political direction.

• 3. Three Days of Fire

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  On the morning of the 18th of February 2014, around 20,000 demonstrators marched from Independence Square toward parliament, where lawmakers were set to consider demands for a new constitution. By 10:08, the column had swelled, with some reports putting the crowd at 50,000. Police armed with Fort-500T shotguns opened up with flash and stun grenades from Shovkovychna Street.

  The clashes that followed produced some of the revolution's most vivid and harrowing details. A member of parliament, Lesya Orobets, reported the initial police attack. Protesters waved 200-hryvnia banknotes at Yanukovych's forces, calling them mercenaries. At 11:30, protesters, including journalist Tetyana Chornovol, sacked and set fire to Party of Regions headquarters on Lypska Street. Two people died, including a programmer who worked in the building.

  On the 18th of February and into the early hours of the 19th, security forces stormed the main protest camp on Independence Square. Seventeen protesters and five riot police died in those clashes. Two protesters died when the Trade Unions Building, which served as Maidan headquarters, was set on fire by riot police.

  The 20th of February was the deadliest day. Interior Affairs Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko announced he had authorized the use of live ammunition. As protesters advanced up Instytutska Street, snipers fired from above while Berkut officers fired from ground level. By midday, 48 protesters had been shot dead on Instytutska Street alone. Two Berkut officers also died. Altogether, across the three days of the 18th through the 20th, at least 82 people were killed, including 13 policemen, and more than 1,100 were injured.

• 4. Russian Hands in the Crackdown

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  The 2-billion-dollar transfer from Russia arrived hours before the police assault on Euromaidan protesters was ordered. The payment was part of a broader 15-billion-dollar package Yanukovych had accepted from Moscow. Government documents later released by Ukrainian former Deputy Interior Minister Hennadiy Moskal alleged that Russian advisers had helped plan the crackdown under operations code-named "Wave" and "Boomerang". The plans reportedly included the use of snipers to disperse crowds and capture the protesters' headquarters, and deployment of 22,000 security troops in Kyiv before some police defected.

  Documents claimed the former first deputy of the Russian GRU stayed at the Kyiv Hotel and played a central role in planning the operation, paid by Ukraine's own Security Services. Reuters reported the authenticity of those documents could not be confirmed.

  At a press conference in April 2014, Ukraine's new interior minister, chief prosecutor, and top security chief implicated more than 30 Russian Federal Security Service agents in the crackdown, saying the agents had helped plan it and had flown large quantities of explosives into an airport near Kyiv. Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, interim head of the Security Service of Ukraine, said Russian agents had been based at an SBU compound in Kyiv throughout the protests, provided with state telecommunications, and in regular contact with Yanukovych's security officials. The FSB dismissed these claims as groundless.

  Leaked emails and phone calls later revealed that Kremlin advisers Vladislav Surkov and Sergey Glazyev had organized and funded separatist protests in Ukraine's south and east.

• 5. The Agreement and the Flight

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  Three EU foreign ministers, Radosław Sikorski of Poland, Laurent Fabius of France, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, arrived in Kyiv on the 20th of February to negotiate a settlement. Their talks with Yanukovych lasted six hours. The resulting document, formally called the Agreement on Settlement of Political Crisis in Ukraine but widely known as the 21st of February Agreement, promised a restored constitution, constitutional reforms complete by September, early presidential elections no later than December 2014, an investigation into the violence, and amnesty for protesters detained since the 17th of February. The three foreign ministers signed as witnesses. Russia's envoy, Vladimir Lukin, declined to sign because he had no mandate to do so.

  The crowd on Independence Square responded to the deal with boos. Activist Volodymyr Parasiuk warned from the stage that if Yanukovych had not resigned by 10:00 the following morning, an armed insurrection would follow. Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh rejected the agreement outright, saying it did not include provisions for arresting Zakharchenko or punishing Berkut commanders.

  That same evening, Yanukovych secretly fled Kyiv without informing parliament. It later emerged he had begun preparing to leave on the 19th of February, even before the worst of the violence. Also missing were acting Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov and Interior Minister Zakharchenko, who reportedly fled to Belarus.

  On the 22nd of February, parliament voted 328-0 to remove Yanukovych from office and scheduled a new presidential election for the 25th of May. Parliament chairman Volodymyr Rybak had resigned that morning, citing illness, and was replaced as chairman by Oleksandr Turchynov, who under the reinstated 2004 constitution became acting president. An arrest warrant for Yanukovych followed on the 24th of February.

• 6. Aftermath and Consequence

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  On the 22nd of February, Yulia Tymoshenko was released from prison and addressed more than 100,000 people on Independence Square. Parliament moved quickly to dismantle the structures of the old regime: the Berkut was dissolved on the 25th of February, and acting Interior Minister Avakov signed the decree. Russia announced that Crimea's Berkut unit would preserve its name as it was absorbed into the Russian Interior Ministry.

  The law on lustration, which barred from government most officials who had served in the Yanukovych administration, affected up to a million people. Volodymyr Yavorsky of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group described the measure as a serious, systematic violation of human rights, partly because it removed officials who could not be easily replaced.

  On the 27th of February, the first Yatsenyuk government was formed as a coalition of Batkivshchyna, UDAR, and Svoboda, along with two parliamentary factions and independents. On the 21st of March 2014, that government signed the EU Association Agreement, the document Yanukovych had refused to sign in Vilnius four months earlier. In May 2014, the International Monetary Fund disbursed 3.2 billion dollars to stabilize Ukraine.

  The civilians killed during the revolution are known in Ukraine as the Heavenly Hundred, a designation that reflects how the country chose to remember them. They are commemorated each year on the 20th of February, designated as the Day of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes. A December 2016 survey of 2,040 Ukrainians by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 56 percent considered the events a popular revolution, while 34 percent regarded it as an illegal armed coup. By June 2016-55 people had been charged in relation to the killings, including 29 former Berkut members and ten former government officials, though prosecutors noted that many suspects had fled the country and evidence had been lost or destroyed.