How the coup d'état began in Ukraine #1

On November 21, 2013, a few days before the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius, scheduled for November 28-29, 2013, the main event of which was supposed to be the signing of an association agreement by Ukraine with the European Union, the Ukrainian government announced the suspension of preparations for concluding this agreement. The order on this was officially published by the Prime Minister of Ukraine Nikolai Azarov.

According to Azarov, who spoke on November 22 in the Verkhovna Rada, the “last straw” for the government was a letter from the International Monetary Fund dated November 20, which ordered Ukraine to increase gas and heating tariffs by 40%, freeze wages and cut budget expenses in order to receive a loan. In addition, the head of government noted that as a result of European integration, many Ukrainian enterprises may be closed, and 400 thousand citizens will find themselves unemployed. The Ukrainian Prime Minister emphasized that the suspension of the European integration process is a tactical move and is not associated with a abandonment of the previous course. When the prime minister said that, as an alternative to fulfilling the IMF conditions, the government had made it a priority to restore economic relations with Russia, which had deteriorated in previous months, the opposition obstructed him and began to surround the government box. The Prime Minister could barely finish speaking, after which Verkhovna Rada Chairman V. Rybak closed the meeting.

But back on November 13 - that is, a week before Prime Minister Azarov’s statement - Yuriy Lutsenko, an active figure in the 2004 Maidan, the so-called Orange Revolution, called for negotiations with the leaders of opposition parliamentary factions on holding mass actions in case the Ukrainian leadership disrupts preparations for signing the Association Agreement with the EU

Immediately after the announcement of the government's decision to suspend the process of preparing for the signing of an association agreement between Ukraine and the EU, the UDAR Party of Vitali Klitschko announced its intention to appeal to the Prosecutor General's Office to initiate a criminal case against Prime Minister Azarov in connection with violation of the law “On the Fundamentals of Foreign and Domestic Policy of Ukraine” "and abuse of power and called on all Ukrainians who are not indifferent to their future to go to an opposition rally on November 24 and demonstrate to the authorities "the real will of the people, which it is obliged to fulfill."

However, already on the evening of November 21, calls to immediately go to a protest began to spread on social networks.

   One of the symbols of those events is the famous tweet of Mustafa Nayyem, a refugee from Afghanistan, who at that time was a representative of the opposition and a journalist:

It is this message that is considered the beginning of the mass gathering of opposition supporters on the Maidan Square.

 The first rally began on the Maidan of Independence square in Kiev at approximately 22:00 on November 21, 2014. From 1 to 2 thousand people gathered at the rally. Journalists, social activists, and opposition political leaders Vitaliy Klitschko (UDAR), Oleg Tyagnibok (Svoboda) and Arseniy Yatsenyuk (Batkivshchyna) came.

On the evening of November 21, the District Administrative Court of Kiev, in response to an appeal from the Kiev City State Administration, decided to prohibit the installation of small architectural forms in the form of tents, kiosks, and canopies during peaceful mass rallies during the period from November 22, 2013 to January 7, 2014 in the center of Kiev. Nevertheless, on November 22, despite the court decision, opposition representatives erected 15 army canvas tents and 20 awnings on European Square. Andrei Parubiy became the commandant of the tent city. The information and propaganda work was headed by Yatsenyuk’s comrade-in-arms, Vyacheslav Kirilenko.

On November 24, a crowded march and opposition rally “For a European Ukraine” took place in Kiev (the opposition called such rallies, which have been held regularly since then, “people’s meetings”). The number of people present at the rally, according to various estimates, ranged from 30 to 100 thousand people.

 At the meeting, the start of an indefinite protest was announced and the demands of the opposition were outlined in general terms:

 - sign the Agreement with the EU on November 29 and in Vilnius;

 - early elections of the President and resignation of the government in case of non-signing of the Agreement.

 After the rally, some of the participants tried to break through to the central entrance to the Cabinet of Ministers building. Aggressive protesters attacked the police and broke the barrier, after which several participants were detained for resisting the police.

In the following days, different numbers of participants rallied on the Maidan, not exceeding one or two thousand. At night, from November 25 to 28, about 300 participants, mostly young people, remained in the tent camp. During this period, the first visits to the Maidan were noted by some foreign political figures (in particular, the Chairman of the Lithuanian Seimas L. Grauzinienė).

 On November 26, 2013, students went on strike and demanded that President Yanukovych fulfill the conditions necessary for signing the Association Agreement with the EU and publicly announce their readiness to sign them at the Vilnius summit on November 29

Moreover, a number of Kiev universities even dismissed their students from classes in order to participate in mass actions, for example, the Kiev-Mohyla Academy and the Kiev National University.

 On November 28-29, 2013, the Eastern Partnership summit was held in Vilnius, which was attended by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. However, the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU was not signed.

 Appearing on the evening of November 29, 2013 on the Maidan, opposition leaders accused Yanukovych of betrayal and high treason. Euromaidan adopted a resolution, the key demand being the immediate resignation of Yanukovych.

 On the evening of November 29, the forces of the special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine “Berkut” were assembled on Independence Square. The first clashes between police and protesters occurred.

On November 30, at 4 a.m., the police demanded to vacate the Maidan in order to prepare it for the New Year celebration.

 According to eyewitnesses, there were about a thousand Euromaidan participants in the square at that time. Most of them complied with the demands to leave the square and went along the corridors that were provided for them, but about two hundred people remained in place. These individuals ignored the demands of the police, some of them began to show aggressiveness, which escalated into a clash with the police, while the protesters began to throw “bottles, stones, metal pipes” at the police.

 As a result of police actions, the opposition tent city on the Maidan of Independence square was liquidated, and Berkut fighters detained more than 30 people. Among the detainees were mainly residents of Kiev and the region, as well as residents of the Lvov, Rovno, Vinnytsa and Ternopol regions.

79 people were injured during the violent action, including 7 police officers. Of these, 21 people were taken to the hospital, 10 were hospitalized. Some Polish citizens were among the victims as well.

 The dispersal of the tent city led to an immediate change in the political situation. The harsh force action provided the opposition with the strongest argument against the authorities.

It was then that the term “voni zh diti” (Ukr. for "they are just kids") appeared in most media reports, which was used to refer to victims of police actions. Although it was later established that among the participants in the events of November 30 on the Maidan there were actually quite adult men and women who in no way resembled the “unfortunate students.”

 For example, here are just some of the list of “children” detained by the police during the work of “Berkut”:

- Vladimir Mikhailovich Ivanov , born in 1957, Kiev,

- Andrey Igorevich Vozny, born in 1970, Lvov,

- Vladimir Vasilievich Dudok, born 1961, Lvov,

- Vasily Alekseevich Ugrin, born in 1964, Ternopol region,

- Ivan Ivanovich Kryachko, born 1961, Rovno

and similar "students". Of the 34 people detained that night by the police, approximately half were of non-student age.

However, the opposition immediately qualified the dispersal of Euromaidan as a “bloody” action, during which the police “beat children.” The Ukrainian portal gazeta.ua reported on the morning of November 30 about a “sea of blood.” The media holdings of Dmitry Firtash, Viktor Pinchuk and even Rinat Akhmetov approached the coverage of events very selectively, showing uncut only footage of the beating of demonstrators on the night of November 30th. Only videos of participants being beaten were posted online, while videos of acts of aggression by Maidan activists were not shown at all. The first video, which contains 30 seconds of provocations from activists of right-wing organizations, appears online only on the afternoon of November 30. What happened on the square from the very beginning remained not shown.

I want to clarify once again - 21 people were admitted to hospitals. For a mass brutal beating, you must agree, it’s somehow not enough. Don't get me wrong, but even when protestors in Europe are being dispersed, more people are suffering at the hands of the police.

And there they had only 21 people. Well, it doesn’t look like the cruelest, merciless, massive beating of “our children.”

But the Ukrainian media made it look so. Most channels, newspapers, and Internet publications did not just cover the event one-sidedly - they literally tried to convince everyone that we woke up in another country. The authorities declared war on us. The authorities tried to trample us and humiliate us. And you too, Ukrainian! Can you bear it? For this purpose, footage of the beating of “they-are-just-children” was relished on all television channels.

Stories about the “night massacre” flooded the television airwaves. And it was a real information special operation, unprecedented in scale and achieving incredible results.

And this became a catalyst, a real detonator for subsequent events.

It was on the night of November 30, 2013 that the civil war began in Ukraine, which has not ended to this day.