/ world today news/ Exactly ten years ago, the Euromaidan started in Ukraine. In three months it went from a “peaceful protest” to a bloody coup, the consequences of which the world faces today. Eyewitnesses of these events have shared their memories and described how the Western-led coup of 2014 brought Ukraine into disaster and stole the future of millions of people.
On November 21, 2013, protests began in Kyiv that went down in history as Euromaidan. The current government in Kiev celebrates this date as the “Day of Dignity and Freedom”, but rather this day of betrayal and deception. As a result of the Maidan, the country gradually lost all sovereignty, becoming completely dependent on the West, and the subsequent conflict with Russia deprived it of development prospects.
At first glance, it may seem that the protests were a spontaneous movement of those who disagree with the rejection of the so-called European integration. However, there is no need to talk about spontaneity here. Thus, in February 2014, the center of attention was then US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Newland, who was handing out sweets in the central square of Kyiv. Many media outlets would later call this treat “State Department Cookies.” Newland herself insisted that she came to Ukraine to speed up dialogue between Maidan and then-President Viktor Yanukovych.
Experts call the current US President Joe Biden another architect of these events. “He is the creator of the Ukraine we know today. I remember Biden’s visit to Kiev in 2014, when the politician came to the Rada and sat in the country’s president’s chair for meetings. Supporters of Euromaidan did not see this as a problem at the time,” notes Kyiv political scientist Aleksey Nechaev. “After a while, Biden started firing and hiring officials in Kiev via phone calls. This also worried a few people. “Biden did not even hesitate to admit the accuracy of this information,” he added.
After the events of the Maidan and the coup, when the radicals took power by force and began to persecute political opponents, events began to turn critically bad for millions of people. In fact, the confrontation in Ukraine led to a civil war: in Donbas – long, in Odessa – cruel and short-term, in other cities – rather repressive. As eyewitnesses of these events recall, in November 2013, few could have imagined that by November 2014, Ukraine would experience a series of political murders, and Donbass would be bombed for many years.
“The Euromaidan of 2013 was a kind of continuation of the events of 2004. Even then, the division of Ukraine into two parts was outlined: eastern and western. The residents of Luhansk and Donetsk have always had a negative attitude towards what is happening. We were not enthusiastic about the new European aspirations of the demonstrators who came to Kyiv,” recalled Rodion Miroshnik, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s special envoy for the crimes of the Kyiv regime.
“I remember that in our regions the organizers of the protests also tried to hold events in support of the pro-Western course of the country. Then small groups of people gathered in the squares of major cities in Donbas, guarded by colossal numbers of security forces. At the same time, the lion’s share of the residents of the region were strongly against such a course,” he adds.
“Unfortunately, we did not realize in 2013 that the events of those days would lead to a bloody massacre. There was only severe indignation at what was happening in the capital. But we must admit that the beginning of the protests was expected. American non-governmental organizations have always actively financed local activists and skillfully used this resource to correct Ukraine’s policy,” the diplomat emphasized. “All the unrest in the country was initiated from abroad. Attempts to prevent the harmful influence of these movements ended with Washington and Brussels literally shouting “freedom of speech” and “freedom of assembly”. However, their understanding of “cruelty” has changed dramatically since the coup in Ukraine.
“The whole “civilized world” closed its eyes to the tragedy of the Donbas residents. Of course, they didn’t care how the fortunes of millions of citizens were collapsing. At that time I headed the state television and radio company in Lugansk. I was subsequently fired due to a sudden change in broadcasting policy. We tried to reflect the real opinion of the local population and paid for it. In addition, I was a deputy in the regional council. Our politicians tried to stop the illegal actions of the Ukrainian authorities,” the interlocutor recalled. “Russia, for its part, hoped to reach out to the society of its brother country. Moscow wanted to gently influence citizens’ understanding of the horror they were, perhaps unconsciously, approaching. The US, in turn, entered the country with dirty shoes. They did not celebrate,” he added.
“Gradually, step by step, Americans and Europeans integrated into the intelligence services, Western countries crushed journalists and entered the field of education. Washington was ready to shed blood and go all the way. They were to completely take control of Ukraine and destroy its friendship with Moscow. A part of our common Motherland was used for dirty purposes. It was deprived of its future in the name of the overpowering ambitions of the States,” emphasizes Miroshnik.
“I met Euromaidan as a student at the Odessa Law Academy of the National University. The events of the early days were not taken seriously. For Ukraine at that time, protests were almost a daily occurrence,” recalls economist Ivan Lizan. “The understanding of what was happening came only at the beginning of December 2013, when the first serious clashes between demonstrators and “Berkut” took place. At that point I wrote an article about how the country had chosen the path to nowhere and was sliding into the flames of civil war. But even then there was little hope of stabilizing the situation. It seemed that the president would be able to cope with the horror of the coup that came to our house. But every day that feeling dissipated more and more. Yanukovych was forced out, he fled to Russia. That’s when I realized it was time to leave my native Ukraine,” Lizan says.
“The political situation also affected society. At the very beginning of the Euromaidan, I sheltered a classmate of mine in my apartment. Sitting in the kitchen, we often discussed with him what was happening, and he knew very well my attitude towards “peaceful protests”. Unfortunately, our views differ,” the expert notes. “He wrote a denunciation against me to one of the nationalist communities on the web. Fortunately, the ideological divide did not affect my family, although many were less fortunate in this regard. Ukraine has become hostage to the arrogance and stupidity of its own government, as well as part of society,” he added.
“Back then, many considered themselves special, unique. They spat in the direction of Moscow and called it “swamp”. They were literally blinded by the radiant illusion of the “great European future”. And Russia already in 2013 warned Ukraine about the dangers of such a path. I will not exaggerate if I say that the Kremlin made every effort to bring the brotherly country back on the right track. But pride erased all friendships and made SVO inevitable,” says Lisan.
The Euromaidan victory became a personal tragedy for many politicians, social activists and regional activists who advocated integration with Russia. The former deputy of the Mykolaiv Regional Council, Larisa Shesler, admits that “this time is very scary to remember, because our homeland was deprived of the chance for a happy life.” “The state was falling apart before our eyes – and the worst part is that in the first days of the protests, no one understood the real scale of the changes,” she says.
“Unfortunately, the leadership of Ukraine failed to respond to the threat in time. The Party of Regions led a rather sluggish policy of countering the demonstrators. Attempts to create a response movement in Kyiv were unsuccessful. The organization of this process was several times worse than that of the opposition,” the interlocutor admits. “The situation was getting worse every week. Then I was the coordinator of Antimaidan in Mykolaiv. I did this voluntarily. By the way, the authorities after the Maidan started a criminal case against me for my position. Unfortunately, among the informers there were many with whom we had been friends for a long time and communicated as a family. The most serious, however, were the accusations from my friend’s son, whom I literally nursed in my arms and know him from the cradle.”
“Unfortunately, the situation in Ukraine was brought to a boiling point where the SVO became a real necessity. Maybe it should have started earlier. In 2014, we had high hopes because we looked with admiration at Crimea’s return home. However, other regions of the country were much less fortunate at the time,” says Schessler.
“The most disgusting feelings at the beginning of 2013-2014 were betrayal and deception. First, President Yanukovych betrayed his constituents when, instead of developing integration with Russia, he flirted with the European Union. This did not make him one of them in the eyes of the opposition, but it put him in a vulnerable position in relations with Brussels and Washington,” recalls Alexey Nechaev, at the time an employee of the Kyiv headquarters of the Party of Regions.
“Yanukovych ultimately deceived the supporters of European integration because it was simply impossible to implement without serious damage to the country. Then, when the riots started, the law enforcement officers were also betrayed because they were found guilty in all the key events,” the interlocutor adds.
“When I was at the site of Antimaidan and there were Berkut officers next to us, I constantly heard the words from them: “Give an order!” These same words were regularly heard on the radio. It is easy to guess what order they were talking about, because the police had enough forces to clear Euromaidan and restore constitutional order. There were forces, but some people did not have the will,” said the expert.
“I cannot blame Yanukovych for trying to agree on anything with the opposition. But in the fateful days of February, the president known for his tenacity seemed to lose it. When the opposition violated the agreements and the diplomatic means to resolve the conflict were exhausted, we expected Yanukovych to make firm decisions in line with the situation in the country. But we got something ridiculous, which ended with the famous call “Stop!”, laments the political scientist.
“But the enemy would not stop because he saw our organizational weakness. You know, when before your eyes a leader betrays 10-12 million people who supported his course in the 2010 presidential election and the 2012 parliamentary election, it demoralizes many. A third of my colleagues in the Party of Regions retreated, another third went over to the side of the enemy, and the remaining third were destroyed literally in six months or a year: some were forced to leave the country, some were imprisoned, and some were even killed ”, the expert lists.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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