The Ukrainian revolution, Euromaidan Revolution or the Revolution of Dignity took place in Ukraine in February 2014, when a series of violent events involving protesters, riot police, and unknown shooters in the capital, Kyiv, culminated in the ousting of Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych.
The events were followed by a series of changes in Ukraine’s sociopolitical system, including the formation of a new interim government, the restoration of the previous constitution, and a call to hold impromptu presidential elections within months. Fifty-seven percent of people in the government-controlled east regard the change in power as an “illegal armed coup”.
Independence Square, Kyiv
On 18 February, some 20,000 Euromaidan protesters advanced on Ukraine’s parliament in support of restoring the Constitution of Ukraine to its 2004 form, which had been repealed by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine shortly after Yanukovych was elected president in 2010. The police blocked their path. The confrontation turned violent; the BBC, citing correspondents, reported that each side blamed the other. The police fired guns with both rubber bullets and, later, live ammunition (including automatic weapons and sniper rifles), while also using tear gas and flash grenades in an attempt to repel thousands of demonstrators.
A turning point came in late February when enough members of the president’s party fled or defected for the party to lose its majority in parliament, leaving the opposition large enough to form the necessary quorum. This allowed parliament to pass a series of laws that removed police from Kyiv, canceled anti-protest operations, restored the 2004 constitution, freed political detainees, and removed President Yanukovych from office. Yanukovych then fled to Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv, refusing to recognize the parliament’s decisions. The parliament assigned early elections for May 2014.