One of the Heavenly Hundred, Kyiv. © Ugo Lucio Borga / Six Degrees
Note to the Reader
Years after the events, Maidan continues to be interpreted through several principal analytical frameworks.¹
These are not merely alternative descriptions of the same phenomenon. Rather, they constitute interpretative lenses that select, hierarchize, and assign meaning to events. They shape not only how Maidan is narrated, but also its political implications in the present.
The first is that of a democratic revolution. From this perspective, Euromaidan represents a spontaneous mobilization of Ukrainian society against a political system perceived as corrupt and predatory. The suspension of the Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013 acted as a catalyst for a deeper discontent, one that concerned not only the country’s foreign policy orientation, but the very nature of the Ukrainian state: systemic corruption, the weakness of the rule of law, the capture of institutions by oligarchic interests, and the widespread perception of a closed system incapable of reform.²
Within this reading, Maidan can be situated within the broader cycle of the so-called “post-Soviet revolutions,” while at the same time distinguishing itself in terms of its social composition and the level of civic self-organization developed during the protests.³ It is not merely a political movement. It is a process of social mobilization that temporarily redefines the relationship between citizens and institutions.
The second interpretation is the narrative of a Western-backed coup, disseminated primarily through Russian political communication and echoed by certain strands of critique directed against Euro-Atlantic expansion into the post-Soviet space.⁴
According to this perspective, Maidan does not represent an autonomous expression of Ukrainian society, but rather the outcome of a process of destabilization in which external actors—Western governments, international organizations, and networks of political influence—supported and shaped the protest with the aim of redefining the geopolitical configuration of the region.⁵
This reading tends to emphasize real elements—such as the political and symbolic support expressed by Western actors during the protests—but reorganizes them within a causal structure in which the internal dimension of the crisis is downplayed or subordinated to the external one.
Between these two poles lies a third interpretation, more widely represented in academic scholarship, which understands Euromaidan as the intersection of three distinct dynamics: a genuine mobilization of Ukrainian society, an internal crisis of the political system, and a geopolitical competition between Russia and the European Union over the country’s strategic orientation.⁶
This perspective does not eliminate the tension between the two preceding interpretations. Rather, it integrates them within a more complex analytical framework, in which internal and external factors interact without one being reducible to the other.
A fourth line of interpretation, developed within the political science literature on the post-Soviet space, shifts the focus further toward the internal functioning of the Ukrainian political system. Within this perspective, Maidan is not merely a mobilization or a geopolitical event, but the breaking point of an existing equilibrium of power.⁷
The Ukrainian political system, since the 1990s, has often been described as a form of “competitive oligarchy”: a configuration in which rival economic groups exert influence over politics and the media, supporting different actors and competing among themselves for access to state resources.⁸
This equilibrium, although inherently unstable, functioned for years as a mechanism for the distribution of power. It prevented the consolidation of an excessively rigid form of centralized control.
With the election of Viktor Yanukovych in 2010, however, this arrangement began to change progressively. A narrow circle of the president’s allies, often referred to as “the Family,” expanded its control over economic resources and state institutions, thereby altering the balance among the various centres of power.⁹
This process did not merely generate tensions among rival elites. It also transformed the relationship between state and society, reduced the spaces for mediation, and heightened the perception of closure within the political system.
From this perspective, Maidan also represents the crisis of a model of governance that had held until that point, but ultimately proved incapable of absorbing a growing combination of internal and external pressures.
Sociological studies and direct testimonies indicate that the protests did in fact originate as a spontaneous civic mobilization, characterized by a heterogeneous social composition and a strong urban component.¹⁰
At the same time, in moments of profound political crisis and during historical junctures of high geopolitical intensity, it is rare for external powers to remain entirely passive. International involvement, whether direct or indirect, is not an exception. It is a recurring feature of processes of global transformation, including those affecting the post-Soviet space.¹¹
To understand Maidan, therefore, requires holding together these different levels of analysis without reducing them to a single interpretative key.
Reducing it either to a pure revolution or to a merely externally orchestrated operation means, in both cases, simplifying a far more complex reality and responding, for the most part, to ideological and political imperatives.
Maidan is not a univocal event.
It is a point of convergence between social dynamics, political conflict, and geopolitical competition, the meaning of which remains contested.
Sources
- Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West, Yale University Press, 2014; Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, Basic Books, 2015.
- Olga Onuch, Henry E. Hale, The Zelensky Effect, Hurst, 2022; Volodymyr Kulyk, “Euromaidan as a Social Movement”, Europe-Asia Studies, 2014.
- Taras Kuzio, Ukraine: Democratization, Corruption and the New Russian Imperialism, Praeger, 2015; Olga Onuch, Gwendolyn Sasse, “The Maidan in Movement: Diversity and the Cycles of Protest”, Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 68, no. 4, 2016, pp. 556–587.
- Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands, I.B. Tauris, 2015; Stephen F. Cohen, War with Russia?, Skyhorse, 2018.
- Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands, I.B. Tauris, 2015; Stephen F. Cohen, War with Russia?, Skyhorse, 2018.
- Paul D’Anieri, Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War, Cambridge University Press, 2019.
- Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom, Tim Duggan Books, 2018; Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2015.
- Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2015.
- Anders Åslund, Ukraine: What Went Wrong and How to Fix It, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2015; Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West, Yale University Press, 2014.
- Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), Survey of Euromaidan Participants, 2014; Olga Onuch, Gwendolyn Sasse, “The Maidan in Movement”, Europe-Asia Studies, 2016.
- United Nations OHCHR, Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine, 15 April 2014; Paul D’Anieri, Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War, Cambridge University Press, 2019.
2. The Trigger
On 21 November 2013, the protest exists, but it carries little weight. It is visible, yet contained.
For several days, Maidan remains what it appears to be: a small encampment, a limited demonstration, seemingly destined to dissipate.¹
The square organizes itself slowly. Tents appear, along with small groups of volunteers and students alternating between university life and protest. Improvised kitchens, meeting points, and minimal forms of coordination begin to emerge. There is still no stable structure, and no recognized leadership.
It is a presence, not yet a movement.²
For this reason, at this stage, the authorities limit themselves to observation without decisive intervention. There is no urgency, and no perception of an immediate threat. Within a political system accustomed to managing fragmented protests that can be negotiated or reabsorbed, this mobilization still falls within the bounds of normality.³
The calculation is implicit: allow it to dissipate.
In the meantime, however, the square produces something that is not immediately visible at the political level. It produces images. Faces, flags, slogans, illuminated phones. A protest that narrates itself in real time through social media.⁴
At this stage, the media dimension does not merely amplify the protest. It structures it. It transforms a local gathering into a shared and reproducible event.
What is still missing is the breaking point. It arrives during the night between 29 and 30 November 2013.
Special riot police units, the Berkut, enter the square to clear the encampment.⁵
The operation takes place at the most vulnerable moment: at night, when numbers are lower, resistance is weaker, and public attention is reduced.
The protesters are largely students.
The intervention is rapid and violent.
The images that emerge in the following hours show bodies dragged across the asphalt, individuals struck while attempting to flee, young people seeking refuge in monasteries in the city centre to escape the charges.⁶
It is not the first time that the police use force. It is the first time they do so against a group perceived as non-threatening.
A detail that changes everything: the violence is no longer interpreted as an instrument of public order, but as a rupture of the implicit pact between the state and its citizens.⁷
Within a few hours, images of the crackdown circulate on social media, are taken up by national and international media, and enter the public sphere with a speed that the political system can no longer control.⁸
This is not merely a matter of information. It is a process of reconfiguration of perception.
The content of the protest changes.
It is no longer solely about the Agreement with the European Union.
It is no longer a matter of foreign policy. It becomes a question of internal legitimacy, a question of rights.
On 1 December 2013, hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets of Kyiv.⁹
What had until that moment been a limited encampment becomes a mass mobilization.
From that point onward, the crisis can no longer be contained through the ordinary instruments of the political system.
There is no return.
Sources
- Olga Onuch, Gwendolyn Sasse, “The Maidan in Movement: Diversity and the Cycles of Protest”, Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 68, no. 4, 2016, pp. 556–587.
- Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), Survey of Euromaidan Participants, 2014; Olga Onuch, Gwendolyn Sasse, “The Maidan in Movement: Diversity and the Cycles of Protest”, Europe-Asia Studies, 2016.
- Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2015.
- Olga Onuch, “EuroMaidan Protests in Ukraine: Social Media Versus Social Networks”, Problems of Post-Communism, vol. 62, no. 1, 2015; Olga Onuch, “Facebook Helped Me Do It: Understanding the EuroMaidan Protester Tool-Kit”, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 2015.
- Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, Basic Books, 2015; United Nations OHCHR, Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine, 15 April 2014.
- Amnesty International, Ukraine: Police Must Be Held Accountable for Violence Against Protesters, December 2013; Human Rights Watch, World Report 2014: Ukraine, 2014.
- Mark R. Beissinger, “The Semblance of Democratic Revolution: Coalitions in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution”, American Political Science Review, vol. 107, no. 3, 2013, pp. 574–592.
- BBC News, Ukraine Protests Timeline, December 2013; Kyiv Post archives; United Nations OHCHR, Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine, 2014.
- Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West, Yale University Press, 2014; BBC News and international media coverage, December 2013.
3. The Square
After 1 December, the protest expands and stabilizes.
The crowd is no longer a peak, a moment of concentration destined to dissolve. It becomes a continuous presence, a form of occupation of urban space that endures over time and alters the very geography of the city.¹
The centre of Kyiv changes function.
The tents are no longer temporary. The barricades are no longer symbolic. Field kitchens, medical points, improvised storage facilities, and spaces for assembly emerge. The square develops its own material infrastructure.²
This infrastructure does not arise from a central plan.
It forms through stratification.
Different groups, including civic activists, informal organizations, volunteers, religious networks, and student associations, contribute to the construction and maintenance of a space that gradually becomes self-sufficient.³
Within a few days, Maidan ceases to be merely the site of a protest.
It becomes a space regulated by implicit norms, shared practices, and emerging forms of authority. It begins to produce functions that, in other contexts, belong to the state: security, distribution of resources, coordination.⁴
Decisions are not taken through centralized command, but emerge from a multiplicity of actors who negotiate, coordinate, and at times compete with one another.⁵
It is a form of horizontal organization, but not one devoid of hierarchy.
Certain groups acquire greater influence through organizational capacity, access to resources, and a greater willingness to engage in direct action.
It is in this context that the sotni develop.⁶
Formally, they are self-defence units; in practice, they represent an attempt to give structure to force. They organize the presence on the barricades, manage rotations, and control access to specific areas of the square.
Alongside volunteers, students, and ordinary citizens, more structured groups begin to emerge, with a defined political identity and a greater predisposition toward confrontation.
Among these, one of the most visible is Right Sector.⁸
Right Sector did not exist as a unified organization prior to Maidan. It took shape during the protests as a coordination platform among several strands of Ukrainian radical nationalism, including Tryzub, led by Dmytro Yarosh, as well as groups such as UNA-UNSO.⁹
The square offers these organizations something that had previously been lacking: a shared operational space.
A context in which to converge, coordinate, and act.
Their presence does not immediately redefine the nature of the protest, but it inevitably alters its internal dynamics and, above all, its external representation.
During the most tense phases, activists from Right Sector are among the most active in confrontations. They occupy the front lines, use rudimentary means, but are organized.
Above all, they are visible.¹⁰
And visibility, in a highly mediatized context, produces effects that extend beyond numerical weight.
The main sociological studies indicate that radical nationalist groups represent a very small minority of participants, generally between 1 and 5 per cent.¹¹
The majority continues to consist of citizens without radical political affiliations: students, workers, professionals, and pensioners.¹²
Yet in the construction of narratives, proportion matters less than representation. What appears more organized, more determined, and more confrontational tends to become the face of the protest.¹³
In the meantime, the square continues to evolve, adapting to the pressure exerted by security forces, reorganizing its defences, and strengthening its channels of communication.
Each attempt at containment produces an organizational response.
It is a cumulative process.
Pressure generates structure.
Structure enables resistance.
Resistance increases pressure.¹⁴
At this point, the protest has already surpassed the threshold at which it can be reabsorbed through limited concessions or selective interventions.
It is no longer a manageable episode.
It is a system that sustains itself.
And, like all systems of this kind, it tends to radicalize as the conflict intensifies.
Sources
- Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West, Yale University Press, 2014.
- Kyiv Post, on-the-ground reporting, December 2013–January 2014; Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, Basic Books, 2015.
- Olga Onuch, Gwendolyn Sasse, “The Maidan in Movement: Diversity and the Cycles of Protest”, Europe-Asia Studies, 2016.
- Mark R. Beissinger, “The Semblance of Democratic Revolution: Coalitions in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution”, American Political Science Review, 2013.
- Paul D’Anieri, Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War, Cambridge University Press, 2019.
- Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), Survey of Euromaidan Participants, 2014.
- Mark R. Beissinger, “The Semblance of Democratic Revolution: Coalitions in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution”, American Political Science Review, 2013; Olga Onuch, Gwendolyn Sasse, “The Maidan in Movement: Diversity and the Cycles of Protest”, Europe-Asia Studies, 2016.
- Anton Shekhovtsov, studies on the Ukrainian far right; Andreas Umland, writings on Ukrainian radical nationalism.
- Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West, Yale University Press, 2014; Anton Shekhovtsov, analyses of Pravy Sektor and Ukrainian far-right politics.
- Olga Onuch, “EuroMaidan Protests in Ukraine: Social Media Versus Social Networks”, Problems of Post-Communism, 2015; Olga Onuch, “Facebook Helped Me Do It: Understanding the EuroMaidan Protester Tool-Kit”, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 2015.
- Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), Survey of Euromaidan Participants, 2014; Olga Onuch, Gwendolyn Sasse, “The Maidan in Movement: Diversity and the Cycles of Protest”, Europe-Asia Studies, 2016.
- Olga Onuch, Gwendolyn Sasse, “The Maidan in Movement: Diversity and the Cycles of Protest”, Europe-Asia Studies, 2016; Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), Survey of Euromaidan Participants, 2014.
- Olga Onuch, “EuroMaidan Protests in Ukraine: Social Media Versus Social Networks”, Problems of Post-Communism, 2015; Mark R. Beissinger, “The Semblance of Democratic Revolution: Coalitions in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution”, American Political Science Review, 2013.
- Paul D’Anieri, Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War, Cambridge University Press, 2019; Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2015.
4. Radicalization
At the beginning of January 2014, the crisis enters a different phase. It is no longer a confrontation between the square and the authorities, but a clash between two systems that increasingly recognize each other as incompatible.
On one side, a mobilization that has developed organizational capacity, control over space, and growing internal legitimacy. On the other, a state whose room for managing the crisis is narrowing, and which begins to rely on more coercive instruments to reassert control.¹
On 16 January 2014, the Ukrainian parliament adopts a package of laws that drastically restrict the freedom of assembly.²
The manner in which these measures are passed, including a show-of-hands vote, extremely compressed timing, and the absence of substantive parliamentary debate, further undermines their legitimacy.³
In public discourse, these measures are rapidly labeled “anti-protest laws.”
They are not merely legal restrictions.
They are a signal. They indicate that the authorities no longer intend to negotiate on previous terms.
The response is immediate.
On 19 January, violent clashes erupt near Hrushevsky Street, just a few metres from the main government buildings.⁴
For the first time, the confrontation assumes an openly conflictual form.
Barricades, Molotov cocktails, burning vehicles. The line separating demonstration from confrontation dissolves.
The Berkut units return to the centre of the scene.
They are no longer merely an instrument of containment. They become the visible face of state force.⁵
The composition of the square also changes. More organized groups, including Right Sector and other nationalist formations, assume a more active role in the clashes.⁶
They do not control the protest, but they occupy its most visible space.
Their presence, already significant in previous weeks, now acquires a different weight, not in numerical terms, but in function.
They are among the few capable of sustaining prolonged confrontation with the security forces. This makes them central to the dynamics of the conflict.
Within a few days, the first fatalities are recorded. On 22 January, several protesters are killed during the clashes.⁷
From this moment onward, any attempt to return to a negotiated management of the crisis weakens.
The language also changes. It is no longer a matter of protest, but of resistance, and on the other side, of order.
Images of the clashes, the barricades, the wounded bodies, and the victims circulate in real time and contribute to a continuous redefinition of the perception of events.⁸
What happens in the square does not remain in the square.
It becomes part of a broader narrative, within which each element is selected, amplified, or reinterpreted.
It is at this stage that the visibility of radical groups such as Right Sector assumes a significance that extends beyond their actual role on the ground.⁹
Not because they control the protest, but because they become a visual and narrative reference point.
And what is visible, in a context of conflict, tends to be perceived as representative.
By the end of January, the crisis is no longer the same.
The protest has lost its initial character, and the authorities have lost the ability to contain it through ordinary means.
Both have entered a phase in which each action produces consequences that amplify the conflict.
The system no longer merely reacts.
It becomes self-sustaining.
Sources
- Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2015; Paul D’Anieri, Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War, Cambridge University Press, 2019.
- Freedom House, Nations in Transit 2015: Ukraine, 2015; Freedom House, Freedom on the Net 2014: Ukraine, 2014.
- Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West, Yale University Press, 2014; Freedom House, Nations in Transit 2015: Ukraine, 2015.
- BBC News, coverage of the Hrushevsky Street clashes, January 2014; Kyiv Post archives.
- Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, Basic Books, 2015.
- Anton Shekhovtsov, studies on Pravy Sektor; Andreas Umland, analyses of the Ukrainian far right.
- Amnesty International, reports on Ukraine, January 2014; Human Rights Watch, World Report 2015: Ukraine, 2015.
- Olga Onuch, “EuroMaidan Protests in Ukraine: Social Media Versus Social Networks”, Problems of Post-Communism, 2015.
- Olga Onuch, Gwendolyn Sasse, “The Maidan in Movement: Diversity and the Cycles of Protest”, Europe-Asia Studies, 2016; Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), Survey of Euromaidan Participants, 2014.
5. The Point of No Return
By mid-February 2014, the system has already entered an advanced phase of instability.
The preceding weeks have produced an accumulation of tension that neither side is any longer able to manage through ordinary means. The protest is no longer an interlocutor. It is an adversary.
The state, in turn, no longer appears as a mediator.
It is part of the conflict.¹
On 18 February marks the beginning of the most violent phase.
Over the course of that day, large-scale clashes develop in central Kyiv, particularly in the vicinity of the parliament and along the streets connecting Maidan to government institutions.²
Burning barricades, charges, and the use of improvised weapons. The confrontation assumes an openly insurrectional dimension.
In the following hours, security forces initiate operations to regain control of the square.
Water cannons, tear gas, and rubber bullets are used, but also, according to numerous testimonies and subsequent investigations, live ammunition.³
The night between 18 and 19 February is among the most violent.
Significant portions of the Maidan encampment are set on fire or destroyed. Protesters retreat, but do not disperse. The structure built over the previous weeks holds.
Under different conditions, an operation of this intensity would likely have led to the dissolution of the protest.
Here, it produces the opposite effect.
It reinforces the perception that there is no longer a way back.⁴
20 February represents the definitive breaking point.
In the early hours of the morning, along Instytutska Street, advancing protesters are struck by gunfire from elevated positions.⁵
Images show individuals falling while attempting to take cover, bodies being dragged away under fire, and improvised rescue efforts. Within a few hours, the number of casualties rises.
These victims will enter public memory as the Nebesna Sotnia, the “Heavenly Hundred.”⁶
Responsibility for what occurred that day immediately becomes the subject of dispute.
Official Ukrainian investigations, as well as reports by international organizations, indicate significant involvement of state security forces in the shootings against protesters. According to information collected by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, based on findings from the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office, the Berkut special unit was identified in preliminary investigations as responsible for the killing of dozens of protesters; three Berkut officers were arrested and charged with murder as early as the spring of 2014.⁷
The investigative picture, however, has never been linear. International organizations themselves have pointed to delays, procedural shortcomings, and difficulties in establishing full accountability. The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine continued in subsequent years to describe an incomplete process of justice. On 20 February 2014, the deadliest day of the protests, forty-nine protesters and four members of the security forces were killed. Five former Berkut officers were charged with the killing of forty-eight protesters and the wounding of eighty others, but the proceedings were weakened by the escape of some defendants and their subsequent inclusion in the 2019 prisoner exchange.⁸
It is within this zone of uncertainty, between judicial evidence, incomplete investigations, and the political use of memory, that alternative reconstructions are situated. The most articulated among them is that proposed by Ivan Katchanovski, according to whom the massacre was not solely the result of gunfire from government forces, but a “false flag” operation organized by segments of the opposition and radical groups in order to provoke the collapse of the Yanukovych regime.⁹
Katchanovski’s thesis is based on an extensive analysis of video materials, courtroom testimonies, body positions, lines of fire, and ballistic traces. According to this interpretation, part of the gunfire that wounded or killed protesters originated not from the forward line of the Berkut, but from buildings controlled by or accessible to the protest movement, including the Hotel Ukraina, the Conservatory, and other structures located to the sides or behind the protesters.¹⁰
To this hypothesis is added a further, more controversial variant, that of the alleged Georgian snipers, according to which certain foreign individuals fired at both protesters and security forces in order to escalate the crisis. This reconstruction, amplified by an Italian television documentary in 2017, is based on testimonies not corroborated by solid independent evidence and presents numerous inconsistencies identified in subsequent verifications.¹¹
The issue, therefore, is not the existence of alternative hypotheses, but their evidentiary basis. Some are grounded in limited evidence or isolated testimonies; others in more systematic reconstructions based on broader and verifiable datasets.¹²
Official investigations and international reports continue to identify state units, in particular the Berkut, as the primary locus of responsibility for the killing of protesters.¹³
The fact that certain trajectories or individual episodes remain contested does not alter the overall picture, but rather indicates its limits of reconstruction.
The distinction is essential. It is one thing to acknowledge that the Maidan massacre has not been reconstructed in every detail; it is another to claim that it was organized by the opposition or by external actors. The former belongs to the domain of research; the latter requires a level of evidence that, at present, has not been met.¹⁴
What emerges most clearly is not a complete reconstruction of every single event, but the systemic effect of what occurred: the violence definitively breaks the possibility of an ordinary political management of the crisis.
After 20 February, the conflict is no longer negotiable on previous terms.
On 21 February, an agreement is signed between Viktor Yanukovych and the opposition, with mediation from the European Union.¹⁵
The agreement provides for early elections and constitutional reform. On paper, it represents an attempt to bring the crisis back within an institutional framework.
It comes too late.
During the night between 21 and 22 February, Yanukovych leaves Kyiv.
On 22 February, the parliament votes for his removal.¹⁶
Presidential power collapses.
Sources
- Paul D’Anieri, Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War, Cambridge University Press, 2019.
- BBC News, coverage of events in Kyiv, February 2014; Kyiv Post archives.
- United Nations OHCHR, Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine, 2014.
- Mark R. Beissinger, “The Semblance of Democratic Revolution: Coalitions in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution”, American Political Science Review, 2013.
- United Nations OHCHR, Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine, 2014; Council of Europe, Report of the International Advisory Panel on the Maidan Investigations, 2015.
- Council of Europe, Report of the International Advisory Panel on the Maidan Investigations, 2015.
- United Nations OHCHR, Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine, 2014.
- United Nations OHCHR, Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), reports 2019; United Nations OHCHR, reports 2020.
- Ivan Katchanovski, studies on the Maidan shootings, 2023–2024.
- Ivan Katchanovski, studies on the Maidan shootings, 2023–2024.
- BBC Monitoring; StopFake; Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, analyses of the “Georgian snipers” claims, 2017.
- Council of Europe, Report of the International Advisory Panel on the Maidan Investigations, 2015; United Nations OHCHR, reports 2019.
- United Nations OHCHR, Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine, 2014; Council of Europe, 2015.
- Marlene Laruelle, Jesse Driscoll, and related critical analyses; United Nations OHCHR, reports 2019.
- European Union mediation documents, February 2014; Paul D’Anieri, Ukraine and Russia, 2019.
- Paul D’Anieri, Ukraine and Russia, 2019; Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, Basic Books, 2015.
6. The Structure of Power
The collapse of presidential power in February 2014 is not merely the result of pressure from the square, but also the outcome of an internal transformation within the Ukrainian political system.¹
To understand the speed with which power dissolves, it is necessary to examine how that power was constructed.
For more than two decades, Ukraine developed as a system that many scholars define as a “competitive oligarchy.”²
This is not an anomaly. It is a specific form of power organization within the post-Soviet space.
Large economic groups, built in the 1990s through privatization processes, control of resources, and political connections, exert influence over the state by supporting political parties, controlling media outlets, and financing electoral campaigns.³
These groups are not homogeneous. Above all, they are in competition with one another.
Yet it is precisely this competition that, for years, functioned as a balancing mechanism, because no single actor was able to fully concentrate power. The system remained unstable, but open.⁴
Among the most influential figures prior to 2014 were Rinat Akhmetov, Dmytro Firtash, and Ihor Kolomoisky.⁵
Each represented a centre of economic and political power. Each maintained relationships with the state, without fully coinciding with it.
With the election of Viktor Yanukovych in 2010, this equilibrium began to change.⁶
Gradually, power became concentrated within a narrow circle, referred to in the literature as “the Family,” which expanded its control over economic resources, state institutions, and coercive apparatuses.⁷
This process produced two effects.
The first was internal to the elite, as other oligarchic groups saw their margins of influence reduced.
The second was systemic. The spaces of mediation between power, the economy, and society contracted. The system lost flexibility, became more rigid, and therefore more fragile.⁸
When the crisis erupted, this arrangement revealed its limits.
The survival of presidential power did not depend solely on the ability to contain the square. It also depended on the cohesion of internal alliances.
At the moment when part of the elite ceased to support the centre, the system began to hollow out from within.⁹
The collapse of Yanukovych was not only the victory of a mobilization.
It was also the dissolution of a network of power that, for years, had ensured the stability of the system.
When this network broke, power was not transferred.
It yielded.
And the vacuum it left did not remain empty for long.
Sources
- Paul D’Anieri, Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War, Cambridge University Press, 2019.
- Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2015.
- Anders Åslund, Ukraine: What Went Wrong and How to Fix It, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2015.
- Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2015.
- Anders Åslund, Ukraine: What Went Wrong and How to Fix It, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2015; Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West, Yale University Press, 2014.
- Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West, Yale University Press, 2014.
- Anders Åslund, Ukraine: What Went Wrong and How to Fix It, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2015; Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West, Yale University Press, 2014.
- Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2015; Paul D’Anieri, Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War, Cambridge University Press, 2019.
- Paul D’Anieri, Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War, Cambridge University Press, 2019.
7. Right Sector — Visibility, Function, and Distortion
It is within this space, a square that is becoming structured and a conflict that is intensifying, that more organized and ideologically defined groups begin to emerge.
Among these, one of the most visible is Right Sector.¹
Right Sector did not exist as a unified organization prior to Maidan. It emerged with Maidan and cannot be identified as its cause.
It took shape during the protests as a coordination among different strands of Ukrainian radical nationalism, including Tryzub, led by Dmytro Yarosh, and groups such as UNA-UNSO, which found in the square a shared operational ground.²
It is not a mass movement. It is a structure that inserts itself into an already existing context and occupies a specific space within it, namely that of confrontation.
At the moment when the protest changes in nature and becomes also a physical confrontation with the security forces, the capacity for organization, discipline, and willingness to take risks acquires a different value.
Right Sector positions itself precisely within this space. It does not control the square, but contributes to defining its most visible front.³
During the most intense phases, particularly in the clashes of January, its militants are among the most present on the front lines, precisely because they are organized and prepared to sustain confrontation.
Their recognizability contributes to making them central in the visual representation of the protest, without corresponding to their numerical weight.
The main sociological studies indicate that radical nationalist groups represent a very small minority of participants, generally between 1 and 5 per cent.⁴
The majority of demonstrators continues to come from heterogeneous social backgrounds, including students, workers, professionals, and citizens without radical political affiliations.⁵
Yet within a mediatized conflict, proportion matters less than representation. What is more visible tends to become more significant, and what is more conflictual tends to be more visible.⁶
It is at this point that the presence of Right Sector acquires a meaning that extends beyond its operational function, becoming a point of narrative condensation.
The ideological reference of these groups is connected, in part, to the tradition of twentieth-century Ukrainian nationalism, including the figure of Stepan Bandera and the experience of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.⁷
This dynamic does not remain confined to the descriptive level, but produces a further shift.
The visible presence of these groups and their historical references are progressively transformed into an accusation, first that of a “Nazi square” and then of a “Nazi state,” which does not correspond to empirical reality.
Radical nationalism, however controversial and historically problematic, does not coincide with Nazism.
They are distinct phenomena, with different origins, ideological structures, and historical contexts.⁸
In political and media discourse, however, this distinction tends to disappear.
The reference to nationalism is reinterpreted through the lens of Nazism and, from there, used to construct a broader narrative.
The transition is gradual, but precise.
From “some radical nationalist groups are present within the protest”
to “the protest is dominated by extremist elements”
to “the political system that emerges from that protest is an expression of a Nazi ideology.”⁹
This is not a demonstrated historical continuity.
It is a superimposition.
A process of conceptual assimilation that reduces distinct phenomena to a single category, rendering them functionally equivalent in public discourse.¹⁰
It is at this point that the accusation of “Nazism” applied to Ukraine takes shape and stabilizes.
Not as the result of rigorous comparative analysis, but as the outcome of a narrative construction that transforms a real element, the minority presence of radical groups, into an overall definition.
The issue is not the presence.
It is the logical leap that transforms it into identity.
This shift becomes even more evident when placed within a broader historical context.
The implicit reference is to collaboration with Nazi Germany and enlistment in the Waffen-SS.
However, this phenomenon was not confined to Ukraine.
It was widespread across Europe and beyond.¹¹
The geographical scope of the phenomenon is relevant not for the sake of completeness, but to demonstrate how collaborationism constituted a recurring dynamic in contexts marked by military occupation, anti-communism, and competition among local elites.
During the Second World War, volunteers from much of Western Europe, including France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, enlisted in the Waffen-SS, as did individuals from Nordic countries such as Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.
Participation was also recorded in Southern Europe, including Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and in Central Europe, including Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
The phenomenon was significant in the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and in the Balkans, with volunteers or conscripts from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovenia, Albania, and Greece.
Participation was also recorded in countries allied with or subordinate to Germany, including Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia, as well as in more complex contexts such as Poland, where cases were limited and historically contested.
A significant component came from the territories of the occupied Soviet Union, including Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. These were joined by Cossack formations and recruits from the Caucasus and Soviet Central Asia.
There are also documented marginal cases or small units associated with individuals from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Argentina, India, and certain areas of the Middle East.
Applied consistently, this criterion would not define Ukraine as “Nazi.”
It would, at the very least, define an entire continent.
Sources
- Anton Shekhovtsov, studies on the contemporary Ukrainian far right; Andreas Umland, writings on Ukrainian radical nationalism.
- Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West, Yale University Press, 2014; Anton Shekhovtsov, analyses of Pravy Sektor and the Ukrainian far right.
- Olga Onuch, Gwendolyn Sasse, “The Maidan in Movement: Diversity and the Cycles of Protest”, Europe-Asia Studies, 2016.
- Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), Survey of Euromaidan Participants, 2014; Olga Onuch, Gwendolyn Sasse, 2016.
- Olga Onuch, Gwendolyn Sasse, 2016; Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), survey data, 2014.
- Olga Onuch, “EuroMaidan Protests in Ukraine: Social Media Versus Social Networks”, Problems of Post-Communism, 2015; Mark R. Beissinger, “The Semblance of Democratic Revolution: Coalitions in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution”, American Political Science Review, 2013.
- Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist, Ibidem Press, 2014.
- Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, 2014; Andreas Umland, studies on Ukrainian nationalism and the far right.
- Paul D’Anieri, Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War, Cambridge University Press, 2019.
- Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands, I.B. Tauris, 2015; Paul D’Anieri, 2019.
- George H. Stein, The Waffen SS: Hitler’s Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945, Cornell University Press, 1966; David Littlejohn, Foreign Legions of the Third Reich, 4 vols., R. James Bender Publishing, 1979–1987; Martin Gutmann, “Debunking the Myth of the Volunteers: Transnational Volunteering in the Nazi Waffen-SS Officer Corps during the Second World War”, Contemporary European History, 2013; Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk et al., eds., The Waffen-SS: A European History, Oxford University Press, 2017; Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe, Penguin, 2008.
8. Continuity of the Apparatus and Transformation of Power: Crimea
The collapse of presidential power does not coincide with an immediate dissolution of the state’s coercive apparatus.
While the political chain of command is disrupted, operational structures, particularly those involved in the repression of the protest, do not disappear at the same moment or in the same way.¹
Among these, the Berkut special units represent the most evident case. Formally dissolved by the new government on 25 February 2014, many of their members are neither disarmed nor subjected to an immediate process of reorganization or control.²
A significant portion of these men withdraws toward Crimea, where Ukrainian state structures are already fragile and the Russian presence more assertive.³
This movement is not the result of a declared plan, but unfolds within a context of institutional disintegration, in which operational units maintain internal cohesion even in the absence of a central political direction.⁴
Within a few days, some of these former Berkut members are integrated into local security arrangements and subsequently into new structures under Russian control.⁵
Their operational experience, knowledge of the territory, and structural continuity render them immediately usable in a context that demands speed and control.
This transition highlights an element often overlooked in the interpretation of these events: the state does not dissolve uniformly.
Some of its components collapse. Others transform. Others are absorbed into new centres of power.⁶
In this sense, the trajectory of the Berkut represents a form of continuity within rupture, a segment of the repressive apparatus that, rather than disappearing, passes through the crisis and is repositioned within a different political and territorial configuration.
Within the same temporal framework, marked by institutional disintegration and a redefinition of power relations, the new political leadership in Kyiv operates under conditions of extreme fragility.
The priorities are multiple: to re-establish a minimum level of administrative control, to construct internal legitimacy, and to signal a break with the past.⁷
It is in this context that, on 23 February 2014, the Ukrainian Parliament votes to repeal the 2012 law on regional languages.⁸
The legislation provided that, in areas where a linguistic minority exceeded 10 per cent of the population, it was possible to use languages other than Ukrainian, including Russian, in public administration, the judicial system, and other local institutional domains.⁹
It is important to emphasize that the law did not concern the use of language in everyday life, in the media, or in private communication.
Russian, like other languages, could be used freely throughout the national territory, regardless of its formal status.
The issue concerned exclusively the language of institutions.
Ukrainian was defined as the official language of the state, without implying the prohibition or limitation of the use of other languages.¹⁰
The adoption of an official language falls within a common practice among most states and does not, in itself, entail the exclusion of other languages from private or social use.
The repeal of the law never enters into force, as it is not promulgated by the acting president.¹¹
From a legal standpoint, therefore, no immediate change occurs.
From a political and symbolic perspective, however, the effect is different.
In a context already characterized by strong polarization and an evident institutional fracture, the vote is perceived in some areas of the country, particularly in the eastern regions and in Crimea, as a signal of a possible redefinition of the relationship between language, identity, and political power.¹²
Within this framework, the very notion of a “Russian-speaking minority” presents elements of ambiguity.
The use of the Russian language is widespread throughout the country, including in the capital, Kyiv, and cuts across very different social and political contexts.¹³
In Ukraine, language does not necessarily constitute a univocal indicator of identity or political orientation.
A significant portion of the population uses Russian in everyday life while identifying with the Ukrainian state and without adhering to political positions that could be defined as “pro-Russian.”¹⁴
In this sense, the representation of a “Russian-speaking minority” as a homogeneous bloc is reductive.
It does not reflect the sociolinguistic complexity of the country, but tends instead to construct an interpretative category that transforms a widespread linguistic reality into a coherent political subject.¹⁵
It is precisely this ambiguity that makes the issue both linguistically and politically usable.
In a phase of instability, even an act devoid of immediate legal effects can be interpreted as a signal of a broader transformation.¹⁶
Within a few hours, the language issue enters public discourse as an indicator of a potential fracture between the political centre in Kyiv and certain areas of the country.
Not as the sole cause of subsequent events, but as one of the elements contributing to the fragility of the relationship between the state and part of its population.¹⁷
In this context, characterized by institutional disintegration, the repositioning of state structures, and the symbolic redefinition of power, the political centre in Kyiv struggles to exercise effective control over the peripheral areas of the state.
The vacuum that emerges is not merely formal, but operational.
The new authorities do not yet possess a stable chain of command, while parts of the existing structures have already begun to move autonomously or to realign on a territorial basis.¹⁸
For the Kremlin, the events in Kyiv do not appear as an orderly transition, but as a sudden collapse of state order in a strategically sensitive area.¹⁹
It is within this window, characterized by instability, indecision, and loss of peripheral control, that the intervention in Crimea takes place.²⁰
At the end of February 2014, armed men in unmarked uniforms begin to take control of strategic points across the peninsula, including government buildings, transport infrastructure, communication centres, and military bases.²¹
The absence of insignia allows, in the initial phase, for a level of ambiguity that makes an immediate response difficult, both domestically and internationally.²²
The speed of the operation, the discipline of the movements, and the capacity to control territory indicate the presence of a structured military organization.
This is not a spontaneous local mobilization, but a planned action exploiting an extremely narrow operational window.²³
Within a few days, operational control of the peninsula effectively passes under Russian influence.
Official acknowledgment of involvement comes only later, when Vladimir Putin admits the presence of Russian military personnel in Crimea during the operation.²⁴
In this sense, the entry of unmarked forces does not represent a sudden rupture, but the operational formalization of a dynamic already underway: a power that disintegrates, structures that reposition themselves, and an external actor that intervenes at the moment of maximum vulnerability.
Sources
- Paul D’Anieri, Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War, Cambridge University Press, 2019.
- Ukrainian Ministry of Interior, decree dissolving Berkut units, 25 February 2014; OSCE monitoring reports, 2014.
- Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West, Yale University Press, 2014; OSW (Centre for Eastern Studies), reports on Crimea, 2014.
- Mark Galeotti, studies on hybrid warfare, 2016; Michael Kofman, analyses on Russian operations in Crimea.
- OSW (Centre for Eastern Studies), reports on Crimea transition, 2014; United Nations and OSCE field reports.
- Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands, I.B. Tauris, 2015.
- Paul D’Anieri, 2019; Andrew Wilson, 2014.
- Verkhovna Rada, parliamentary vote of 23 February 2014.
- OSCE, reports on linguistic rights and minority policies in Ukraine, 2014.
- United Nations OHCHR, Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine, 2014.
- Statements by Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov, February 2014.
- United Nations OHCHR, 2014; OSCE Special Monitoring Mission reports, 2014.
- Andrew Wilson, 2014; Olga Onuch, Gwendolyn Sasse, “The Maidan in Movement”, Europe-Asia Studies, 2016.
- Olga Onuch, Gwendolyn Sasse, 2016; studies on linguistic identity and political behavior in Ukraine.
- Marlene Laruelle, studies on identity and nationalism in the post-Soviet space.
- Richard Sakwa, 2015; Andrew Wilson, 2014.
- OSCE, 2014; United Nations OHCHR, 2014.
- Paul D’Anieri, 2019; House of Lords EU Committee, The EU and Russia: before and beyond the crisis in Ukraine, 2015.
- House of Lords EU Committee, 2015; analyses on Russian perceptions of the crisis.
- OSW (Centre for Eastern Studies), reports on Russian policy towards Ukraine, 2014.
- OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, reports March 2014; OSW Crimea reports.
- NATO StratCom, analyses on unmarked troops, 2014.
- Michael Kofman; Mark Galeotti, studies on Russian hybrid operations.
- Statements by Vladimir Putin, March–April 2014.
The Use of the “Nazism” Label in the Ukrainian Case
In contemporary political and media discourse, the attribution of the label “Nazism” to Ukraine is, in most cases, grounded in a process of generalization that transforms the documented presence of radical nationalist groups, in part historically linked to Banderism, into an overall characterization of the state and society.¹
This operation entails a double simplification.
The first consists in conflating radical nationalism with Nazism, two phenomena that are distinct in both historical and ideological terms.
Nazism constitutes a historically defined ideology, characterized by specific elements such as biological racism, structural antisemitism, totalitarianism, and an expansionist conception of the state.²
These elements cannot be implicitly assumed, but require empirical verification in the contexts to which the term is applied.
In the case of contemporary Ukraine, such characteristics are not observable in the institutional structure of the state or in the political orientation of the government.³
The second simplification consists in extending the characteristics of politically active minorities to the political system as a whole.
Available empirical evidence indicates that far-right groups in Ukraine represent a minority component, both within society and within the political system, as also reflected in the electoral results of parties associated with that ideological area.⁴
At the same time, the historical reference to collaboration with Nazi Germany during the Second World War, frequently invoked to support this accusation, concerns a phenomenon that, while also present in Ukrainian territories, was widespread across much of Europe and cannot be regarded as an exclusively distinctive feature.⁵
The use of the accusation of “Nazism” in the contemporary context thus appears less as an analytical category and more as an instrument of political delegitimization, embedded within a broader conflict of narratives.⁶
This does not imply denying the existence of forms of radical nationalism, nor does it entail the removal of historical responsibility.
Rather, it underscores the need to distinguish between empirically observable phenomena, such as the minority presence of radical nationalist groups, and the use of categories such as “Nazism” to describe an entire political system.
Sources
- Paul D’Anieri, Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War, Cambridge University Press, 2019.
- Ian Kershaw, Hitler: A Biography, W.W. Norton, 2008; Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, Routledge, 1991; Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, Knopf, 2004.
- Andreas Umland, studies on Ukrainian radical nationalism; Freedom House, Freedom in the World: Ukraine, post-2014 reports.
- Anton Shekhovtsov, studies on Ukrainian far-right parties; official Ukrainian electoral results after 2014; Freedom House, Freedom in the World: Ukraine, post-2014 reports.
- George H. Stein, The Waffen SS: Hitler’s Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945, Cornell University Press, 1966; David Littlejohn, Foreign Legions of the Third Reich, 4 vols., R. James Bender Publishing, 1979–1987; Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk, Leonid Rein, Andrii Bolianovskyi, Oleg Romanko, eds., The Waffen-SS: A European History, Oxford University Press, 2017.
- Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands, I.B. Tauris, 2015; Paul D’Anieri, Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War, Cambridge University Press, 2019.