As always after long periods away, the couple were looking forward to returning home, where they would enjoy the simple things in life, like pottering in the veggie garden, having a hit of tennis and helping out at the kindergarten in Mallacoota where their grandchildren attended. They had missed their grandchildren greatly and were happy to be heading home.
Chapter 6
Ukraine, January–March 2014
The protest movement in Ukraine had been in large part a fight for the country’s economic future, for better jobs and prosperity. Ukraine had all the necessities to build a prosperous economy: a large potential consumer market, an educated workforce, a significant industrial base and good natural resources and rich farmland. Yet its economy was in tatters. Corruption, bad government and short-sighted reliance on cheap gas from Russia had caused political unrest.
The people were very much aware of all this and were not going to back down; they had clearly had enough. On 12 January 2014, large crowds of protesters marched through Kiev, reviving the movement after a Christmas and New Year lull. Three days later, attempting to stem the tide and keep matters under control, the Ukrainian parliament passed restrictive anti-protest legislation.
MPs from President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, the country’s largest political party, pushed new laws through the Ukrainian parliament that imposed harsh punishments on those who did not comply with the anti-protest legislation and continued protesting against the government. The unauthorised installation of tents, stages or amplifiers in public places in Ukraine would be punished by a fine or detention, and people and organisations who helped to facilitate such meetings in any way would also be liable to a fine or even jail time. Spreading propaganda and wearing a mask or any face covering became illegal.
The message the government was sending to its people was clear: Yanukovych was done with the protests. The streets of the capital must be cleared and if the people would not accept this, their president could now send in the police to ensure the law was obeyed.
Western countries were quick to disapprove of the measures taken by the government. In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry said the move was disturbing and wrong, but Ukraine’s foreign minister Leonid Kozhara rebuked the West over its criticism, stating that such comments from the US were ‘considered in Kiev as meddling in the internal affairs of our state’.
Yanukovych’s new measures only added tension to an already highly explosive situation. In response, a stand-off between protesters and police began on 19 January 2014 in Kiev. In defiance of the new ‘dictatorship laws’, some 200,000 people gathered for a Sunday mass in central Kiev in protest; they urged Yanukovych to step down to enable the formation of a new government by the opposition and the implementation of economic reforms.
Many protesters ignored the face concealment ban, defiantly wearing masks handed out by the opposition parties, while others wore hard hats and gasmasks. The ‘Euromaidan activists’, as they were now being described, appealed to the military to support the Ukrainian people, rather than what they called the ‘criminal regime’, and begged members of the military and police not to carry out ‘criminal orders’ when those orders involved the use of force against civilians. The activists’ leaders promised the police that those who were fired by the government because they refused to incite violence would be reinstated once a new regime for Ukraine was installed.
As time passed, with both sides not yielding an inch, matters lurched even further out of control. The crowds supporting the Euromaidan protests grew. No one was going home before this matter had been resolved and the ultimate goal of the protesters—Viktor Yanukovych’s removal from office—had been met. It might cost lives but many at Maidan were willing to become martyrs if that meant the start of a better future for their children. The world looked on and held its breath.
Clashes between protesters and police began on 20 January 2014 as thousands descended upon parliament via Hrushevskoho Street and were met by police cordons and a blockade of military cars, mini-vans and buses. A police loudspeaker warned, ‘Dear citizens, your actions are illegal and are against the state.’ Warnings that advancing within three metres of police would be considered a threat to police officers’ rights and would inevitably prompt a response were also blurted out above the heads of the crowd.
With tensions running high, an outburst wasn’t long in coming. Both sides exchanged projectiles as the day wore on. The stun and smoke grenades the Berkut fired at the advancing protesters fuelled the crowd’s anger. Protesters—some of them hooligans who had joined the protests for the thrill—attacked the police barricade armed with sticks, pipes, helmets and gasmasks. Police shot at demonstrators with rubber bullets, and rumours swirled that a storming of the main protest encampment, the heavily barricaded Maidan, by police could begin at any time. An additional series of riots in central Kiev outside the Dynamo football stadium, adjacent to the ongoing Maidan protests, followed. It was the day the protests went into history as the Hrushevskoho Street riots, and it was also the day the riots turned fatal.
The first death occurred when a 22-year-old man plunged from the thirteen-metre-high wall of the football stadium, suffering multiple fractures and spinal damage, and dying as he was rushed to hospital. In the early morning of 22 January, while he was climbing the barricades in the conflict zone, twenty-year-old Serhiy Nigoyan was killed by police gunfire. Suffering four gunshot wounds, including one to the head, he died on the scene. Mikhail ‘Loki’ Zhyznewski was the next fatal casualty. He was also shot dead by police with a sniper rifle. Two additional shooting victims were announced as deceased by Euromaidan medical service coordinators by Wednesday evening, but their allegations were based on TV footage in which police were seen dragging motionless bodies to their side of the fighting, and these deaths could not be confirmed. On 25 January another victim, Roman Senyk, died in a Kiev hospital after being wounded in the chest.
According to medical workers on the ground, 300 people were injured and treated on 20 January, 250 on 21 January, more than 400 on 22 January, and 70 on 23 January. The injured were counted on both sides of the barricades, but the extent of the violence on both sides was beginning to split the protesters, with cracks appearing in the opposition. On one occasion, opposition leader Vitali Klitschko had attempted to bring calm, but he was sprayed with a fire extinguisher by a protester from the crowd and shouted down as a traitor.
Realising that Yanukovych was not going to yield and with the situation becoming hopeless, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov handed in his resignation. It was just hours before a vote of confidence that probably would have removed Azarov from power anyway. President Yanukovych signed a decree dismissing the whole of the cabinet, but it was decided that Azarov and his government would remain in office until a new election could be held. It was now 28 January, and nine of the twelve recently enacted anti-protest laws were repealed and a bill offering amnesty to arrested and charged protesters was issued.
Two weeks later, in mid-February, events took an unexpected and peaceful turn when Yanukovych, shaken by the extent of the violence, agreed to meet with the opposition. The deal was made by three politicians, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Vitali Klitschko and Oleh Tyahnybok, who had emerged as negotiators on behalf of the Maidan protesters. Following peace talks with President Yanukovych, two of these opposition leaders addressed the crowd on Hrushevskoho Street to announce a proposed truce with the government in exchange for the release of all arrested or detained protesters. The news was poorly received by a disappointed crowd, which greeted them with chants of ‘Liar!’ and ‘Freedom or death!’ and booed the leaders.