After the 100-day EuroMaidan Revolution succeeded in ousting pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, the nation was left exhausted and vulnerable.
Russia exploited this weakness: instead of helping Ukraine, it started seizing the territories of its closest neighbor, annexing Crimea and starting a bloody war in the Donbas.
Devastating as it was, 2014 also showed the longing that Ukrainians had for democracy and independence, as the nation set to pushing Russia back.
Revolution unites nation
The darkest and most violent moments of the EuroMaidan Revolution took place during five short winter days in the third week of February 2014.
They will endure in Ukraine’s collective memory as some of the most painful and important moments in recent history.
Protests were initially sparked on Nov. 21, 2013 by the decision of the Yanukovych regime to pivot away from a promised association agreement with the European Union and toward deeper ties with Russia.
Ukrainians were against such a move, and they started gathering across the country to protest. But the peaceful rallies were met by violence and later bullets. Yanukovych’s police used gas, automatic weapons, and sniper rifles against protesters.
Events reached a tragic conclusion on Feb. 18–20, as Ukrainian forces backing Yanukovych, including paid-for gangs of so-called titushki and Berkut special police killed 100 people.
Besides those victims, 18 police officers were also killed in the final days of the revolution.
But Yanukovych was finished. His faltering presidency came to an end when he fled to Russia on Feb. 22, 2014, evidently in fear of his life. He has remained in exile and has been convicted in absentia for high treason against Ukraine.
The crimes that happened during the EuroMaidan remain unpunished today.
Russia invades, occupies
While more than 100 people died during the revolution, the death toll for the nation would only grow as Russia used the Ukrainian revolution to seize the country’s territories.
Almost at the same time as Yanukovych was fleeing to Moscow, Russian soldiers in plain uniform and without insignia seized strategic points on the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, claiming they were defending the rights of Russian-speaking population living there.
Within a month, after a sham referendum on March 16, Russia’s land grab was complete. The whole operation is now believed to have been planned well in advance. Yanukovych was convicted by a Ukrainian court for inviting the Russian forces to attack.
Russia didn’t stop with Crimea, however, as it started instigating violent uprisings throughout southern and eastern Ukraine, even claiming that southeastern Ukraine was historically part of its country in a region known as Novorossiya.
Russia-backed militants stoked violent protests that brought them directly into conflict with the beleaguered and disoriented Ukrainian security services.
August saw Russian regular forces exploit this chaos and invade the Donbas, marking the start of a war coordinated from Moscow that continues in Ukraine today. About 7% of the Ukrainian territory is still occupied by Russia, some 14,000 people have been killed and 5.2 million need humanitarian aid.
Volunteers save country
Fleeing the country, Yanukovych left the nation flat broke — he and his cronies siphoned $40 billion from the nation over his four-year rule. Ukraine’s state treasury had no money left and the economy was in danger of collapse, leaving the nation unable to defend itself.
Ukrainian forces were ill prepared for the annexation of Crimea, but the nation quickly mobilized to defend against further attacks in the eastern regions. Volunteer fighters played an essential role in the first weeks of the war, organizing into militia battalions to slow down the Russian invasion, while a new government was rebuilding the state and its military.
This rebuilding would not be possible without another type of volunteers: those who helped to equip the army. Essential things like food and uniforms were in short supply, so volunteers brought them to fighters on the front lines. People crowdfunded the purchase and supply of things like heaters, medical kits and military equipment.
Soon after, Ukraine’s international allies also stepped up and began supporting the Ukrainian armed forces, including the airlifting of supplies and ammunition to forces in the Donbas, but the first volunteer help was vital to contain the war.
Rise of Poroshenko
A wave of patriotism and clear hunger for European integration were used as a rallying cry by Petro Poroshenko to win the May 25 election for Ukraine’s first post-revolution presidency.
Although billionaire Poroshenko held minister positions under two presidents, including Yanukovych, his early and strong support of the democratic revolution gave him credibility among voters: Poroshenko got 54 percent of the vote in a landslide victory on May 25.
In his campaign, he pledged to sign the full EU association agreement for closer economic ties in June, and did so on June 27. He had also promised to deliver a visa-free regime with the EU, which came true in June 2017.
But Poroshenko’s biggest promises remained unfulfilled by 2019. He vowed to end the war against Russia in a matter of “hours, not months.”
Massacre in Ilovaisk
In an attempt to fulfil this promise, Poroshenko made Ukraine go on the offensive in trying to regain its territory, but suffered devastating battlefield losses, in Illovaisk, most notably, and soon entered peace talks with Russia at a disadvantage.
The Ukrainian army was advancing to liberate its territory, and the city of Ilovaisk was supposed to be where it would break Russia’s proxy forces. But the battle turned into a slaughter that ended the Ukrainian advance and left 366 Ukrainian soldiers dead.
The Battle of Ilovaisk changed the course of the war, forcing Ukrainian authorities to buy time with a humiliating peace deal in Minsk.
Those agreements, signed first in September 2014, proposed a ceasefire followed by the withdrawal of weaponry by both sides. By the end of 2015, local elections were to be held in the occupied territories under Ukrainian law, followed by autonomy for the region.
However, none of the Minsk agreement provisions have been fully realized to this day.
MH17 shot down
Russia and Kremlin-backed forces have committed no shortage of crimes since they first attacked Ukraine in 2014. But few events have sparked outrage like the downing of civilian airliner Malaysian Airlines flight 17.
All 238 passengers and 17 crew aboard were killed after the plane disintegrated over Donetsk.
Multiple investigations have since revealed it was downed by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile from a Russian military base that had been transported into the occupied Donbas from Russia on the day of the crash.
Multiple foreign governments, including Malaysia, Australia and the U.K. have said they hold Russia responsible for the disaster.
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service, in fact, has charged four people with murder in connection with the downing of MH17, three Russians and one Ukrainian. International arrest warrants have been issued, but justice for MH17 is still elusive.
