Ukraine has marked the seventh anniversary of the shooting deaths of dozens of Euromaidan anti-government protestors. The revolution toppled Ukraine's Russia-friendly former president, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2014.
This was reported by Radio Liberty.
On February 18, Mayor of Kyiv Vitaliy Klitschko laid flowers at the sites where the deadly shootings occurred seven years ago, as well as at the so-called Monument of the Heavenly Hundred on Kyiv's Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti).
"Every day of the fight -- from autumn 2013 to February 2014 -- was important. No matter how difficult it is now, we will not disown or betray the ideals and principles we fought for at Maidan," Klitschko said.
The Euromaidan movement began in November 2013 when protesters gathered on the central square in Kyiv to protest Yanukovych's decision not to sign a crucial trade accord with the European Union. Instead, he sought closer economic ties with Russia. On February 18, 2014, the actual shootings erupted. At least 22 protesters died on Independence square that day. Several hundred others were seriously injured. The former president, who was secretly flown to Russia and remains there, denies that he ordered police to use fire on protesters, saying that the violence was the result of a “planned operation” to overthrow his government.
Shortly after Yanukovych's downfall, Russian military forces seized control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula -- a precursor to the Kremlin's illegal annexation of the territory through a hastily organized and widely discredited referendum. Russia has also supported pro-Russian separatists fighting Ukrainian government forces in eastern Ukraine.
According to the data, more than 13,200 people have been killed in the conflict since April 2014.