On Feb. 21, 2014, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich left Kyiv for Kharkiv and fled from there to Russia. At the time, Ukraine was in the throes of the largest social crisis in the country’s modern history. Anti-government protests had been ongoing in Kyiv since the previous November, and at the Maidan, or Independence Square, more than one hundred people were killed during clashes with the police. The consequences of that crisis included a burst of Russian interference, the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, the ongoing war in the Donbass region, and a major rupture in Russian-Ukrainian relations. In this photo essay, Meduza recalls the events that rocked Kyiv in the winter of 2013 – 2014.
EuroMaidan Revolution
Meduza: Kyiv’s Maidan, five years later – a photo essay
People light candles at the Maidan activists memorial, also called the "Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred", referring to the people killed during the pro-EU Maidan demonstrations of 2014, during a commemorative event near the Independence Square in Kyiv, on Feb. 20, 2019.
