Please note these are all unarmed protesters. They have no real weapons. They have shields in an understanding that violence was possible.
At this point in the country Yanukovych was still in power. The national military still existed but was completely disarmed by him. What Yanukovych put in place of the military were militias owned and operated by oligarchs friendly to him. Basically, Yanukovych booby trapped the country. While the people could still protest at their own peril, the militias were to enforce the dictates of Yanukovych. If one recalls, he was spirited away to Crimea where under cover Russian officers saw him aboard a jet to self-exile in Russia. So, this is not a Ukraine dynamic. This is what occurs when those loyal to Russia rule in Ukraine. They destroy the Ukrainian Constitution and rain authority and violence on the people.
So, why do Ukrainians fight? Why not? They had no peace under Yanukovych. They don't want it back!
The first investigations of the Maidan violence were considered falsified. We know for a fact there was extreme Russian corruption in Ukraine. The European Union demanded the corruption to be removed before Ukraine could be eligible for membership. It is one of the reasons President Zelensky was elected. He was well known to the Ukraine people, liked, and trusted. He promised to establish good relations with Europe by cleaning up the corruption as well as good relations with Russia for the same purpose; to engage a vibrant economy. Then, in time, as Zelensky installed a magnificent, young, and corruption free government Putin decided good relations were not possible and started a war with a wonderful country full of earnest people.
Now.
Those earnest people are engaged in war with many dead and many more refugees into eastern and western Europe.
Living with Putin is not life at all, it is oppression without end. This is why the Post-Soviet states are not interested in any relationship with Putin in power and quite possibly communist influence forever. It is why they made choices to align with NATO. NATO does not interfere with their independent governance.
This violence and killings were 20 years ago. Twenty years is a generation and Americans forget the reason these people are resolved to be alive under democracy and freedom. To them there is no going back and they still mourn the taking of their children by Russian soldiers into re-alignment camps. Ukraine children are not suppose to be Ukrainian anymore, but, citizens of Russia. That is a form of genocide.
A boy wearing camouflage walks past a mural depicting a special forces soldier during a military-style competition organized by the National Guard security force for military cadets and youths, at a training ground in Balashikha, outside Moscow.
I am quite sure Vladimir's children are not involved.
This video appendix shows shootings (click here for video) of Maidan protesters from Maidan-controlled buildings and areas during the Maidan massacre in Kyiv in Ukraine on February 20, 2014 and a massacre of Maidan protesters in Khmelnytskyi on February 19, 2014. It uses content analysis of brief segments of well-known videos of these massacres and unbroadcast segments of a widely broadcast Belgian VRT News TV video of the Maidan massacre to reveal such shooting. This is the online Video Appendix C of papers prepared for presentation at the virtual 52nd Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies in the US in 2020 and the 10th World Congress of the International Council for Central and East European Studies in Montreal in 2021.
