Residents of Kyiv and people from across the country gathered on Feb. 18 at the memorial to those killed during the EuroMaidan anti-government protests in Kyiv, marking the fifth anniversary of bloody massacres on the streets of the Ukrainian capital.
At least 26 people, including 10 police, were killed on Feb. 18, 2014 when then President Viktor Yanukovych ordered his security forces to attack protesters who had gathered near parliament in Mariyinsky Park and on nearby Institutska Street. Riot police were aided in the deadly attack by “titushki” or thugs hired by the government.
The subsequent advance by the security forces almost succeeded in overrunning the protesters’ main encampment on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, but the protesters fended the police off with burning barricades.
Later, on Feb. 20, 2014, dozens of protesters were shot by snipers as they advanced towards the government quarter from Independence Square, the center of the protests. Amid public shock and outrage, President Yanukovych on Feb. 22, 2014 abandoned office and fled Kyiv, first to eastern Ukraine, and then to Russia.
He was found guilty in absentia of treason on Jan. 25 for undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity, having invited Russia to intervene militarily in Ukraine.
But those who ordered and carried out the mass killings on Feb. 20, 2014 have never been found and put on trial.
