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Below are the foreign reactions to the Euromaidan . [nb 1] 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. [4]
On 4 February 2014, [61] a YouTube post [62] revealed a phone conversation between Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Geoffrey R. Pyatt, United States Ambassador to Ukraine, in which Nuland, referring to Vitali Klitschko as 'Klitsch' and Arseniy Yatsenyuk as 'Yats', stated "I don't think Klitsch should go into the government. I don't think it's necessary. I don't think it's a good idea... I think Yats is the guy... ." Nuland went on to state that Robert Serry and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will be used to put pressure on Ukrainian leaders, including the opposition, to circumvent the EU, specifically Nuland exclaimed "and, you know, fuck the E.U." [63]
In December 2013, a proposal of opposition deputy Giorgi Baramidze in the Parliament of Georgia "to encourage supporters of Ukraine's European integration with a special resolution and to condemn the violence on participants of peaceful rallies in Kiev" was met by counter demands by representatives of the parliamentary majority "that deputies of the former ruling party United National Movement should give a political assessment of forceful dispersals of the Georgian opposition rallies in Tbilisi in 2007 and 2011". [64] The dispute between deputies escalated into a brawl, in which no one sustained serious injuries. [64] On 21 February 2014, during President Giorgi Margvelashvili's annual address, the Georgian lawmakers observed a minute of silence to honor the victims of violence in Kyiv, with the Ukrainian flags on display on the desks of many members of the parliament. [65]
Smaller protests or Euromaidans were also organized starting on 24 November by Ukrainians and local citizens of Ukrainian descent in countries such as Poland, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Austria, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, the United States and Canada. [91] More than one hundred Ukrainians had gathered in Prague to support Euromaidan in Ukraine. [92] Conspicuously absent were non Ukrainian radical leftist organized demonstrations supporting Euromaidan. [93]
Similar events were reported on 26 November in Warsaw, [94] Kraków, [95] Łódź, [96] Poznań, [97] Wrocław, [98] Katowice, [99] Lublin, [100] Rzeszów, [100] Olsztyn, [101] Elbląg, [102] Zamość, [103] Biały Bór, [104] London, Paris, Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Budapest, Oslo, Bergen, Stockholm, Malmö, Lund, Vienna, Bratislava, Vilnius, [105] Tbilisi, Toronto (150), [106] Winnipeg (100+), [107] Saskatoon, [108] Edmonton (150), [109] Cleveland (Parma), [110] Sofia, [111] and The Hague. [112] Simultaneous support events were organized by Baltic nationalist youth movements on 3 December in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius. [113] And one in Amsterdam on 7 December. [114]
In Vienna, hundreds came with banners to support the rapprochement between Ukraine and the EU. In London, the gathered Ukrainian community chanted the slogan "Ukraine to Europe". [91]
In Sofia, Ukrainians in Bulgaria and Bulgarian citizens have called a rally for 27 November in support of pro-EU protesters in Ukraine. Bulgarian organizers have suggested a bond between Ukrainian protesters and anti-government protesters in Bulgaria, who have been calling for the resignation of left-wing PM Plamen Oresharski since mid-June. According to them, both nations must unite against "ever-hungry oligarchs who forcibly push us towards Russia." [111]
In Armenia, on 2 December, hundreds of people marched through the capital Yerevan to denounce a visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin and to express their solidarity with the pro-European rallies in Ukraine. [115] [nb 4] Local media reported that 100 participants were arrested by police. [115]
On 1 and 2 December, rallies were held in several Canadian cities, including Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton (250 protesters), [116] Saskatoon (100+), [117] Regina, [118] Winnipeg, [119] Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. [72] Protests were also held in the American cities of New York City (200+) [120] Chicago (200+), [121] Philadelphia (40), [122] Miami (50), [123] [124] and Warren, Michigan [125] (bordering Detroit).
On 8 December, Euromaidan solidarity rallies occurred in many North American cities, including New York (1000+), San Francisco (500+), [126] Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, San Diego. [127] On 30 December, Niagara Falls was lit blue and yellow while a rally was held. [128]
In Tashkent on 27 January, several activists gathered in front of Ukrainian embassy, supporting Euromaidan, waving flags of Ukraine, Georgia and Ukrainian Insurgent Army. They were detained by police. [129]
On 29 November 2013, on the Polish-Ukrainian border crossing in Medyka, Poles and Ukrainians created a human chain as a symbol of a solidarity between the two nations, and as a sign of support for pro-EU protesters in Ukraine. [130]
On 2 December, supporters picketed the Embassy of Ukraine in Moscow holding a banner reading "Ukraine, we are with you". 11 participants, including Yaroslavl Oblast Legislative Assembly member Boris Nemtsov, were detained by police [81] and later released on grounds of "violating procedure". [131] [132] On 5 December, a rally in support of Euromaidan was also held in St. Petersburg. [133]
In December 2013, Warsaw's Palace of Culture and Science, [134] Buffalo Electric Vehicle Company Tower in Buffalo, [135] Cira Centre in Philadelphia, [136] and the Tbilisi City Assembly in Georgia [137] were illuminated in blue and yellow as a symbol of solidarity with Ukraine.
When the existence of protests could no longer be denied, they were presented as a foreign plot. On television and on the Internet, two themes dominate: the Europeans want our historic territory, and the Europeans are gay. Fantasies of sex and domination displace description and analysis.
According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Russian state television reporting on Euromaidan "has been described as misleading, [and] at times downright odd"; it claimed "Russian television reporters have spared no efforts to portray the protesters as a horde of hooligans funded by the West to topple Yanukovych and sow chaos in Ukraine". [147] A Russia-1 report on 1 December featured an eight-minute long live segment that contained no interviews and almost no additional footage. The reporter said the situation in Kyiv is pure "anarchy," adding that the streets were dangerous, especially for Russians, and said that the protests seem to be orchestrated by Western countries. [148] On the same network, Dmitry Kiselyov (who during the protests was made head of the state news agency) [149] described the Klitschko brothers on 8 December as "gay icons", and demonstrators in Kyiv were accused of surviving off of heated lard and using "ancient African military techniques" against police, and surmised "Under the slogan 'Ukraine is Europe,' life in central Kyiv is becoming more and more archaic." [147] [150] Attempts were made to link alleged "early sex from the age of 9 in Sweden" and pre-pubescent impotence, along with a rise in child abortions, with European integration. [147] [151] Also during a show on Russia-1, it was stated that the protests had been organised by Sweden, Poland and Lithuania "because they were still smarting from Russia's victory at the Battle of Poltava in 1709". [152] "This week the coalition has shown its full strength," Kiselyov said on his weekly talk show, "It looked like a thirst for revenge for Poltava." [153]
During the second week of protests, Russia-24 had made a link between "a sharp deterioration in the political climate in Ukraine" with "the change in the seasons". [147] The station claimed that this was "a bold theory" of scientists at Columbia University (it added "And it appears that their Russian colleagues agree with them") and it advised protesters in Kyiv to go home for the sake of their health, warning of "a sharp rise in acute respiratory viral infections in Kiev". [147] Russian state-owned Perviy Canal (Channel First) reported that only "several hundred people" showed up at the rally on 8 December, and that protests were "dying out", [150] when in reality up to 500,000 attended. [148] It was reported that Russian newscasters in Kyiv have opted to use unbranded microphones, so as to hide their channel's affiliation. [148]
First Channel likened Ukraine's situation to that of Yugoslavia, of which the channel showed footage accompanied by somber music. [154]
Otar Dovzhenko, a TV analyst and professor at Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, explained that "Russian media can't hide the protests in Ukraine, so they try to bring them down, make them look undesirable. Discrediting the protests in Ukraine is very important for the regime of President Vladimir Putin. The Orange Revolution of 2004 gave strong inspiration to the opposition in Russia." [148] He also says that Russian media omit the genesis of the Euromaidan protests being the Ukrainian government, which is why foreign interests are usually focused on. [148]
Police estimates of a pro-government rally in Kyiv on 14 December reported a maximum of 60,000. [155]
Channel One Russia presenter and vice-president of Rosneft Mikhail Leontyev stated that "Ukraine is not a country at all, it is a part of our country". [156]
On Russian state television, Andrey Illarionov, a former adviser to Russian president Vladimir Putin, political scientist, is frequently heard discussing preparations for a military invasion, and has stated "Ukraine is a failed state, and the historic chance for reunification of all the Russian lands can be lost in the next couple of weeks, so we mustn't put off the solution to the Ukrainian Question." The phrase "the solution to the Ukrainian Question" is considered to echo Adolf Hitler's Final Solution to the Jewish question . [157]
Komsomolskaya Pravda led its front page on 10 December with the headline "Ukraine may split into several parts" above a map showing the country's division into four areas. The following day, it ran a front-page headline declaring: "Western Ukraine is preparing for civil war". [154]
The newspaper Kommersant Ukraine reported on 24 December 2013 that the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had satisfied an inquiry of Party of Regions MP Oleh Tsariov to deny entry into Ukraine to 36 people. [171] Tsariov himself had told Kommersant Ukraine that they were suspected of "consulting with the opposition to destabilize the situation in the country", and hinted that they would have attempted to organize a revolution (in Ukraine). [171] Among the 36 people were former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, academic Taras Kuzio, member of the expert council of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on European Integration Andreas Umland, Brian Fink, Myron Wasylyk, Alec Ross and Marko Ivkovic. [171] The list was alleged to contain 29 citizens of Georgia, five US citizens and a citizen of Serbia. [171]
On 24 January 2014, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov stated in an interview with RBC Information Systems "European politicians could give Ukraine real help in stabilizing the situation" and hinted they should "addressed the Ukrainian opposition and say that the seizure of state organizations and administrative buildings is illegal and contradicts the standards of democracy. And if you pursue such actions, we will not cooperate with you". [172]
Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a former Ukrainian politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014. He also served as the prime minister of Ukraine several times between 2002 and 2007 and was a member of the Verkhovna Rada from 2006 to 2010. A member of the pro-Russian Party of Regions, Yanukovych provoked mass protests — the Euromaidan — against his rejection of closer integration with the European Union and was removed from the presidency by the Ukrainian parliament in 2014, at the time neighboring Russia started to annex Ukrainian Crimea and started the Russo-Ukrainian War. Since then, he has lived in exile in Russia.
Vitaliy Yuriyovych Zakharchenko is a Ukrainian and Russian politician who is a senior consultant at Russia's Rostec state corporation. He previously served as Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs from 7 November 2011 until he was suspended from his duties by the Ukrainian parliament on 21 February 2014. His position as Minister of the Interior, had given him control over the Ukrainian national police service, the Militsiya. One day prior to his dismissal, he had signed a decree calling for the police to be armed with combat weapons, to be used in their ongoing battles against protesters in Kyiv's Maidan Nezalezhnosti. The Council of the European Union sanctioned him effective 6 March 2014 for misuse of public funds and human rights violations, and the United States sanctioned him effective 22 December 2015.
"Rise up, Ukraine!" was a nationwide series of political protests by opposition parties All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland", UDAR and All-Ukrainian Union "Svoboda" against the government of the former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych that commenced on 14 March 2013. It was intended as a two-month campaign to end on 18 May 2013 in Kyiv. But the provisional final date was initially from May 2013 postponed to 24 August 2013, Independence Day of Ukraine. In June 2013 the organisers claimed that no final end of the protest had been set.
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.
The Titushky were mercenary agents in Ukraine who supported the Ukrainian security services during the administration of Viktor Yanukovych, often posing as street hooligans in sports clothing with the purpose of serving as provocateurs at pro-European and anti-Yanukovych political rallies that would incite violence in order to get protestors arrested. Their role grew more prominent in the wake of Euromaidan, where they were involved in numerous clashes and acts of violence during the movement. The concept of Titushky also exists outside of Ukraine throughout Central and Eastern Europe, where the term became synonymous with the ruling regimes' informal, violent enforcers.
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 17 December 2013 Russian–Ukrainian action plan was a de facto defunct proposed agreement between the Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych publicized on 17 December 2013 whereby Russia would buy $15 billion of Ukrainian eurobonds to be issued by Ukraine and that the cost of Russian natural gas supplied to Ukraine would be lowered to $268 per 1,000 cubic metres. The treaty was signed amid the escalating Euromaidan movement which sought closer ties between Ukraine and the European Union. The interest rate on the loan would be renegotiated every three months, based on a verbal agreement between the two leaders.
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.
In response to a police crackdown on Euromaidan's protesters in the early hours of 30 November, more than half a million Kyivans joined the protests on 1 December in order to defend the students "and to protect society in the face of crippling authoritarianism."
In response to anti-protest laws in Ukraine, a standoff between protesters and police began on 19 January 2014 that was precipitated by a series of riots in central Kyiv on Hrushevsky Street, outside Dynamo Stadium and adjacent to the ongoing Euromaidan protests.
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.
Automaidan is a pro-European Ukrainian socio-political movement involving the use of cars and trucks as means of protest that first began in late 2013 in Kyiv within the advent of Euromaidan.
Spilna Sprava is a political party in Ukraine registered on 19 March 2015, though active since late 2010. The name of the organisation, taken from Latin Res publica, indicates the republican nature of the movement, as well as symbolises the active civic solidarity of Ukrainians. It was founded in December 2010, during the Tax Maidan-2010 protests against the fiscal policies of Viktor Yanukovych.
The Revolution of Dignity, also known as the Maidan Revolution or the Ukrainian Revolution, took place in Ukraine in February 2014 at the end of the Euromaidan protests, when deadly clashes between protesters and state forces in the capital Kyiv culminated in the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych, the return to the 2004 Constitution of Ukraine, and the outbreak of the 2014 Russo-Ukrainian War.
The first government headed by Arseniy Yatsenyuk was created in Ukraine on 27 February 2014 in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity. The cabinet was formed as a coalition of the Batkivschyna, UDAR and Svoboda political parties, the Economic Development and Sovereign European Ukraine parliamentary factions, and several unaffiliated MPs. On 24 July 2014, UDAR, Svoboda and 19 independent MPs exited the coalition to pave the way for the early parliamentary elections of late October 2014. Prime Minister Yatsenyuk announced his resignation the same day, but the Verkhovna Rada declined his resignation on 31 July 2014.
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.
The assault of Euromaidan by security forces on 11 December 2013 was an attempt by Viktor Yanukovych's government to break up the Euromaidan protest through a night assault using Berkut special police units and interior ministry troops. Their tactics included the displacement of frontal peaceful protesters from lightly barricaded camps at the Independence Square and part of Khreshchatyk Street which is near Bessarabska Square.
The Agreement on the Settlement of the Political Crisis in Ukraine was an agreement signed on 21 February 2014 by then-President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, and the leaders of Ukraine's parliamentary opposition, with mediation from the European Union and Russia. The agreement aimed to reduce bloodshed at the Euromaidan demonstrations in Kyiv, which had become significantly more violent during the Revolution of Dignity and resulted in the deaths of over 100 people. It also sought to end the political crisis caused by Euromaidan, which had begun in November 2013 in response to Ukrainian authorities' decision to suspend the signing of the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement.
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: CS1 maint: others (link)The same newspaper [Komsomolskaya Pravda] had a frontpage headline on Wednesday declaring: "Western Ukraine is preparing for civil war". Inside, it carried a story quoting a Ukrainian member of parliament, Oleg Tsarev, saying: "The Americans want victims!"