"I Am a Ukrainian" is an Internet viral video, first posted on YouTube in 2014 featuring a young Ukrainian woman supporting the protestors in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. At the woman's request, British photographer Graham Mitchell filmed her speaking on the Maidan, and her friend, Ben Moses, edited the material into video he posted on her behalf on YouTube. By late March that year the video had been viewed over 8 million times.
The woman in the video was initially not named [1] in order to keep her safe, [2] but was eventually identified as Yulia Marushevska, a Kyiv Ph.D. student of Ukrainian literature at Taras Shevchenko National University. [3] Marushevska conceived, wrote, and produced the video after the death of five people, three of whom died of gunshot wounds, on January 22. [4] Marushevska felt she needed to do more for the EuroMaidan, and was frustrated with what she perceived to be the foreigners’ ignorance about why the protests were happening.[ citation needed ] She wanted to inform the viewers that the Ukrainians want to change their government due to concerns over alleged unchecked corruption within it. [5] [ unreliable source? ] They ended up shooting a 2-minute, 4 second long video [5] where she speaks in English. [6]
After only a few days on YouTube the video had about 3.5 million views. [6] The video has received mostly positive reception, with the majority of the tens of thousands of comments supportive. [5] [6] [7] By February 21 the video had approximately 70,000 "likes" and 4,000 "dislikes". [5] A minority of voices argued that it is too one-sided. [6] [7] It has also been criticized for its professional production value, invoking a comparison to the controversial Kony 2012 viral video, which misled viewers into thinking it was a purely amateur production. [7] [8]
BBC News has described it as having the greatest impact of any video from the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. [6] Moses has now completed a feature-length documentary, Witness to a Revolution, about Yulia's and Ukraine's progress in the year following her viral video. [9]
In July 2015 Mikheil Saakashvili, Governor of Odesa, announced that Yulia Marushevska accepted a job as Deputy Head of the Odesa Regional State Administration. According to Mikheil Saakashvili Yulia Marushevska had previously spent a year of training at Harvard and Stanford universities. [10]
Mikheil Saakashvili is a Georgian and Ukrainian politician and jurist. He was the third president of Georgia for two consecutive terms from 25 January 2004 to 17 November 2013. He is the founder and former chairman of Georgia's United National Movement party. From May 2015 until November 2016, Saakashvili was the governor of Ukraine's Odesa Oblast. After resigning, he was temporarily exiled, but returned in 2019 under a new President. Saakashvili returned to Georgia in 2021, and has been imprisoned there since then.
Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko is a Ukrainian politician, who served as Prime Minister of Ukraine in 2005, and again from 2007 until 2010; the first and only woman in Ukraine to hold that position. She has been a member of the Verkhovna Rada as People's Deputy of Ukraine several times between 1997 and 2007, and presently as of 2014, and was First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for the fuel and energy complex from 1999 to 2001. She is a Candidate of Economic Sciences.
Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Ukrainian: Майдан Незалежності, IPA:[mɐjˈdɑnnezɐˈɫɛʒnosti] or Independence Square is the central town square of Kyiv, the capital city of Ukraine. One of the city's main squares, it is located on Khreshchatyk Street in the Shevchenko Raion. The square contains the iconic Independence Monument.
The Berkut was the Ukrainian system of special police of the Ukrainian Militsiya within the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The agency was formed in 1992, shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as the successor to the Ukrainian SSR's OMON.
Since their independence from the Soviet Union, Georgia and Ukraine have forged close political and cultural relations. The diplomatic relations between the two nations are realized at the level of embassies and consulates. Due to the prosecution in Georgia of Georgian/Ukrainian politician Mikheil Saakashvili and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, relations between the two countries have soured significantly.
Valentyn Oleksandrovych Nalyvaichenko is a Ukrainian diplomat and politician.
Euromaidan, or the Maidan Uprising, was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on 21 November 2013 with large protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv. The protests were sparked by President Viktor Yanukovych's sudden decision not to sign the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement, instead choosing closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. Ukraine's parliament had overwhelmingly approved of finalizing the Agreement with the EU, but Russia had put pressure on Ukraine to reject it. The scope of the protests widened, with calls for the resignation of Yanukovych and the Azarov government. Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption, abuse of power, human rights violations, and the influence of oligarchs. Transparency International named Yanukovych as the top example of corruption in the world. The violent dispersal of protesters on 30 November caused further anger. Euromaidan was the largest democratic mass movement in Europe since 1989 and led to the 2014 Revolution of Dignity.
Democratic Alliance is a pro-European political party in Ukraine, registered in September 2011, formed on a basis of an anti-corruption platform and Young Christian Democrats of Ukraine NGO.
Below are the foreign reactions to the Euromaidan. Euromaidan was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine that began on the night of 21 November 2013 after the Ukrainian government suspended preparations for signing an Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the European Union.
Below are the domestic responses to the Euromaidan. Euromaidan was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine that began on the night of 21 November 2013 after the Ukrainian government suspended preparations for signing an Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the European Union.
The Maidan People's Union is an alliance in Ukraine formed by several political parties and non-partisan individuals and public organizations on the fifth Sunday of the Euromaidan-protests with the aim of "building a new Ukraine and a new Ukrainian government" by creating a new Ukrainian constitution, and removing corrupt judges and prosecutors. It also aims to organize opposition to the current regime and to coordinate the protest movement in all regions of the country. In practice this means broadening support for the goals of the organization in the pro-government and pro-presidential heartland East Ukraine.
Altogether, 108 civilian protesters and 13 police officers were killed in Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, which was the culmination of the Euromaidan protest movement. The deaths occurred in January and February 2014; most of them on 20 February, when police snipers fired on anti-government activists in Kyiv. The slain activists are known in Ukraine as the Heavenly Hundred or Heavenly Company. By June 2016, 55 people had been charged in relation to the deaths of protesters, including 29 former members of the Berkut special police force, ten titushky or loyalists of the former government, and ten former government officials.
Euromaidan was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on the night of 21 November 2013 with large public protests demanding closer European integration. Protesters also stated they joined because of the dispersal of protesters on 30 November and "a will to change life in Ukraine". The scope of the protests evolved over subsequent months, and by 25 January 2014 the protests were fueled by the perception of widespread government corruption, abuse of power, and violation of human rights in Ukraine. By February 2014 the protests had largely escalated into violence, resulting in the Revolution of Dignity and the resignation of Azarov's government and ousting of President Yanukovych. This resulted in the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
From the end of February 2014, in the aftermath of the Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity, which resulted in the ousting of Russian-leaning Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, demonstrations by Russian-backed, pro-Russian, and anti-government groups took place in Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Odesa. The unrest, which was supported by the Russian military and intelligence services, belongs to the early stages of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
The anti-Maidan refers to a number of pro-Russian demonstrations in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014 that were directed against Euromaidan and later the new Ukrainian government. The initial participants were in favor of supporting the cabinet of the second Azarov government, President Viktor Yanukovych, and closer ties with Russia. By the time of the Revolution of Dignity in February 2014, the “anti-Maidan” movement had begun to decline, and after the overthrow of Yanukovych, the anti-Maidan fractured into various other groups, which partially overlapped. These ranged from people protesting against social ills, to supporters of a federalization of Ukraine, to pro-Russian separatists and nationalists.
Yulia Marushevska is a Ukrainian activist and civil servant. A graduate student in literature and history, she appeared in a short video, entitled I Am a Ukrainian, which went viral after being posted in February 2014. In the spring of 2014, she gave talks about the cause of Ukrainian freedom in the United States and Canada and was interviewed by news media from dozens of countries.
Tetyana Volodymyrivna Danylenko, is a Ukrainian TV journalist and television host for the Channel 5 and the Hromadske.tv, a blog editor at the Ukrayinska Pravda.
In early 2014, there were clashes between rival groups of protestors in the Ukrainian city of Odesa, during the pro-Russian unrest that followed the Ukrainian Revolution. The street clashes were between pro-revolution ('pro-Maidan') protesters and anti-revolution ('anti-Maidan'), pro-Russian protesters. Violence erupted on 2 May, when a 'United Ukraine' rally of about 2,000 was attacked by about 300 pro-Russian separatists. Stones, petrol bombs and gunfire were exchanged. A pro-Russian gunman shot dead a pro-Ukraine protester. Another pro-Ukraine activist and four pro-Russia activists were shot dead in the clashes. The pro-Ukraine group then moved to dismantle a pro-Russian protest camp in Kulykove Pole, causing some pro-Russian activists to barricade themselves in the nearby Trade Unions House. Shots were fired from the building at the pro-Ukraine group, and the pro-Ukrainians attempted to storm the building, which caught fire as the two groups threw petrol bombs at each other.
Alexander "Sasha" Borovik is an American lawyer of German citizenship. From 2015 thru 2016, he was invited to be First Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine. He also served as a deputy governor and an adviser to the governor of Odesa Oblast, Mikheil Saakashvili.
Movement of New Forces is a Ukrainian political party that was founded as the "Party of Harmonious Development" on February 11, 2015, and renamed in February 2017 by Mikheil Saakashvili.