Euromaidan

The massacre of almost 50 Maidan protesters on February 20, 2014 was a turning point in Ukrainian politics and a tipping point in the conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. This mass killing of the protesters and the mass shooting of the police that preceded it led to the overthrow of the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych and gave a start to a civil war in Donbas in Eastern Ukraine, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. A conclusion promoted by the post-Yanukovych governments and the media in Ukraine that the massacre was perpetrated by government snipers and special police units on a Yanukovych order has been nearly universally accepted by the Western governments, the media, and many scholars. The Ukrainian government investigation identified members of the special company of Berkut as responsible for killings of the absolute majority of the protesters, but did not release any evidence in support, with the exception of videos of the massacre.
              The question is which side organized the “snipers’ massacre.” This paper is the first academic study of this crucial case of the mass killing. It uses a theory of rational choice and a Weberian theory of instrumental rationality to examine actions of major actors both from the Yanukovych government, specifically various police and security forces, and the Maidan opposition, specifically its far right and oligarchic elements, during the massacre.
          The paper analyzes a large amount of evidence from different publicly available sources concerning this massacre and killings of specifics protesters. Qualitative content analysis includes the following data: about 1,500 videos and recordings of live internet and TV broadcasts from mass media and social media in different countries(some 150 gigabytes), news reports and social media posts by more than 100 journalists covering the massacre from Kyiv, some 5,000 photos, and nearly 30 gigabytes of publicly available radio intercepts of snipers and commanders from the special Alfa unit of the Security Service of Ukraine and Internal Troops, and Maidan massacre trial recordings. This study also employs field research on site of the massacre, eyewitness reports by both Maidan protesters and government special units commanders, statements by both former and current government officials, estimates of approximate ballistic trajectories, bullets and weapons used, and types of wounds among both protesters and the police. This study establishes a precise timeline for various events of the massacre, the locations of both the shooters and the government snipers, and the specific timeline and locations of nearly 50 protesters’ deaths. It also briefly analyzes other major cases of violence during and after the “Euromaidan.” This study includes two video appendixes.
            This academic investigation concludes that the massacre was a false flag operation, which was rationally planned and carried out with a goal of the overthrow of the government and seizure of power. It found various evidence of the involvement of an alliance of the far right organizations, specifically the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland. Concealed shooters and spotters were located in at least 20 Maidan-controlled buildings or areas. The various evidence that the protesters were killed from these locations include some 70 testimonies, primarily by Maidan protesters, several videos of “snipers” targeting protesters from these buildings, comparisons of positions of the specific protesters at the time of their killing and their entry wounds, and bullet impact signs. The study uncovered various videos and photos of armed Maidan “snipers” and spotters in many of these buildings. The paper presents implications of these findings for understanding the nature of the change of the government in Ukraine, the civil war in Donbas, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

This chapter seeks to assess Western and Russian influence on the collapse of Viktor Yanukovych’s regime. Drawing on the works of Levitsky and Way and Tolstrup, the chapter explains why during the 2014 crisis Yanukovych was able to withstand Western and domestic pressure much longer than Leonid Kuchma did in 2004, and why he was eventually toppled. I argue that Yanukovych’s ability to prolong his stay in power was circumscribed by three specific factors: his concentration of power, Russian backing and miscalculated Western threats to impose sanctions. His downfall, however, was ultimately determined from within the state.
The chapter contributes to the theory of hybrid regimes by extending the concept of linkage and leverage to non-democracies; it also offers an empirical measure of Russian anti-democratic influence on Ukraine.

Recently a number of internationally recognized scholars and public intellectuals signed a letter in full support of Euromaidan protests, backing ‘Ukrainian society’ against ‘Ukrainian government’. Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck, Craig Calhoun, Claus Offe, Saskia Sassen, Charles Taylor, Michel Wieviorka, Slavoj Žižek and many others celebrated the ‘legal’ and ‘peaceful’ protests embodying, as they claimed, ‘the best European values’, demanded a ‘Marshall-like plan’ for Ukraine, and expressed the hope that, if welcomed to EU, Ukrainians would help to build ‘a new Europe and a fairer world’.

Unfortunately, the letter shows an unacceptable level of understanding, simplification and misrepresentation of very contradictory Ukrainian protests containing very dangerous trends which will be only legitimized more if unrecognized by such esteemed academics.

Collection of essays that discusses in three chapters (a) Ukrainian politics since Euromaidan, (b) Polish-Ukrainian relations, and (c) national identity issues. A separate chapter, "In memoriam," is dedicated to author's close friends and active participants of Ukrainian cultural life –James Mace, Oleh Lusheha, Hryhoriy Chubay, Oleksandr Hrytsenko and Bohdan Turetsky.

The article develops a typology of revolutions based upon women's roles over the course of revolutionary struggle. In addition to the patriarchal and the emancipatory models, the study proposes a hybrid model of women's participation in a revolution, characterized by the diversity and fluidity of women's roles. According to the hybrid model, women’s involvement in a revolution can follow three different strategies: (1) acquiescence to a traditional gender-based division of labor, (2) appropriation of the masculine forms of resistance, and (3) mixing of diverse modes of action. Using the case of the 2013–2014 Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine, the empirical analysis demonstrates multifaceted forms of women's activism. The study contributes to the literature by broadening the conceptualization of women's participation in a contemporary urban revolution.

https://doi.org/10.5129/001041520X15699553017268

Desde el primer momento del Euromaidán el principal campo de batalla ha sido la guerra informativa desde los medios de comunicación y, sobre todo desde las Redes Sociales.
Esta investigación se centra en la vertiente online de esa guerra informativa. Se ha podido comprobar que el llamado Euromaidán no fue un movimiento social espontáneo ni auto-organizado.

In the process of decommunisation, Ukraine has toppled all its Lenin monuments. This book documents the inglorious fate of these Soviet statues, following their often violent removal. Photographer Niels Ackermann and journalist Sébastien Gobert have scoured the country in search of the remains of these toppled figures. They are found in the most unlikely places: Lenin inhabits gardens, scrap yards and store rooms. He has fallen on hard times –  cut into pieces, daubed with paint, turned into a Cossack or Darth Vader. Yet despite every attempt to reduce their status, the monuments retain a sinister quality, resisting all efforts to separate them from their history.

Myroslava Hartmond's introductory essay puts Niels and Sébastien's journey across Ukraine into historical and global perspective, highlighting the uniqueness of the Leninfall phenomenon and the significance of their work in the context of post-Soviet studies.

160x200 mm hardback
176 pages
ISBN 978-0-9931911-7-6
Published in 2017

Purchase from publisher here:
http://fuel-design.com/publishing/looking-lenin/

У збірці есеїв авторка пропонує читачеві аналіз понад вось-
мисот слоганів українського спротиву – у фокус потрапляє пе-
ріод Євромайдану 2013–2014 рр. та подальший розвиток по-
дій в сучасній Україні. В есеях, котрі мають і наукове підґрунтя
(соціолінгвістика, дискурс-аналіз), риторику суспільних подій
висвітлено у науково-публіцистичному стилі. Із цієї збірки читач
може довідатися, як мова формує ідентичності та цінності, ві-
дображає суспільні зміни, якою є динаміка революційної рито-
рики (у зіставленні з попередніми українськими протестами –
Студентською революцією на граніті 1990 р. та Помаранчевою
революцією 2004 р. та з демонстраціями в інших країнах світу).
Революційні слогани виконали як суспільні функції (мобілізації,
згуртування
протестувальників), так і мовні (комунікативну,
експресивну, поетичну), стали частиною аудіовізуального образу
майдану, елементом формування колективної пам’яті про нього.
У мові протесту і подальшого українського спротиву переплелися
вербальна агресія і мовне злагіднення, архаїчні і модерні
риси, елементи літературних мов і соціолектів (суржику, азірівки,
жаргону, сленгу).
Книжка розрахована на широке коло читачів
– як лінгвістів,
студентів, особливо гуманітаріїв, так і тих, хто цікавиться укра-
їнськими суспільними подіями, цінностями українського гро-
мадянського суспільства.

What remained from the multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, multi-confessional, all boundaries transcending experience of Maidan? How do faith communities today embody reconciliation in Ukraine? In this paper the focus is on the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church (UGCC). What is its role in a society and country that suffers from war, that faces a threatened political existence and a desastrous economic situation? How does its theology respond to the challenges and what is the peacebuilding potential of it? A theology of revolution has emerged in Ukraine. My paper presents the emerging political theology in Ukrainian context, and aims at contributing to it with some critical considerations.

This is the pre-print working paper version, see the full printed version: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_democracy/v025/25.3.onuch.html

The protests that began in Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv on 21 Novem- ber 2013 and became known as the EuroMaidan took even seasoned observers of East European politics by surprise. By December, around 800,000 “ordinary” Ukrainians were demonstrating in Kyiv and other cities across the country. The rapid rise of mass protests, especially at a time when the world’s established democracies are struggling with growing political apathy and declining voter turnout, appears as what Timur Kuran has called one of those moments “when out of never you have a revolution.”1 These episodes may help the cause of democ- racy, but they can also destabilize countries by polarizing citizens and boosting extremists. In order to gauge what a protest outbreak will mean for a country’s democratic prospects, it is crucial to understand who the bulk of the protesters are and what goals they hope to achieve. Here follows original survey data that may help to shed light on Euro- Maidan protest participation and its implications for democratic hopes in Ukraine.

En este trabajo de investigación queremos exponer como la Unión Europea sirve de instrumento para el progreso de terceros países, que no pertenecen a ella. Este hecho nos sirve como modelo para profundizar en el proceso de integración europea, que sigue la
Unión Europea a través de sus políticas de ayuda a estos países, en especial a Ucrania, que es el país objeto de nuestro estudio. Teniendo en cuenta los acontecimientos que se han desarrollado en este país desde finales del año 2013, cabe destacar como una gran cantidad de ciudadanos ucranianos salió a las calles, para defender su identidad. Este hecho significa la búsqueda de la identidad pérdida, vinculada a la parte occidental de Europa, tras años de pertenencia a la Unión Soviética. Partimos para esta explicación de la independencia de Ucrania en el año 1991, que sin lugar a dudas fue el hecho que dio
comienzo a las relaciones con la Unión Europea. Hay que señalar, como se verán en las páginas de este trabajo, la importancia de los gobiernos y sus ideales en cuanto a la política exterior en cada momento. En esta investigación ponemos en relación ambas cosas, las políticas internas seguidas en Ucrania y a su vez las políticas que sigue la Unión Europea. Todo ello, bajo la sombra de Rusia, que en cada una de las etapas de estas relaciones demuestra sus intereses en Ucrania y su intento por atraerla bajo su órbita.

The Maidan and civil war from the perspective of an EU think-tank. Readers should not expect to find in its pages a balanced assessment of contending arguments or a systematic analysis of the available sources, followed by well-grounded conclusions. For the most part, this is a one-sided, tendentious account of Ukraine’s Maidan protests of 2013–14, the Russian intervention and the civil war, heavily reliant on web-sourced information, anonymous interviews and hectic prose, pieced together to bolster a very specific political agenda. It is driven not by a desire to investigate what actually happened and why, but rather to rebut critics—from all sides—of a Western neoliberal line. The nature of Russian policy, the legitimacy of the Yanukovych government and the character of the Maidan protests are all grist to this mill.

RESUMEN: El propósito del presente artículo es mostrar como la oleada de movimientos separatistas prorrusos, que se desencadenaron en el este de Ucrania desde las protestas del Euromaidan en 2014, fue motivada por los intereses del gobierno de la Federación Rusa sobre éste territorio de vital importancia para el desarrollo de su política geoestratégica. La reconstrucción y el análisis de los hechos más importantes que se dieron durante los momentos críticos de la crisis ucraniana son indispensables para entender como la manipulación sentimental presente en las declaraciones de Rusia fueron claves en el empoderamiento de los manifestantes separatistas. PALABRAS CLAVE: Ucrania, Rusia, referéndum (Thesaurus), prorrusos, pro ucranianos, protestas (palabras clave del autor) Russia vs. Ukraine: The Revival of the Soviet Geostrategy ABSTRACT: The purpose of this article is to show how the wave of pro-Russian separatist movements that erupted in eastern Ukraine since the Euromaidan protests in 2014 was motivated by the interests of the government of the Russian Federation over this vital territory for the development of its geostrategic policy. The reconstruction and analysis of the most important events that occurred during the critical moments of the Ukrainian crisis are indispensable to understand how the sentimental manipulation present in the declarations of Russia were key in the empowerment of the separatist demonstrators.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukrainians and Russians have been living peacefully in two separate and independent states for nearly a quarter of a century. Much has been said about the cultural and historical links between these two ‘brotherly’ countries, but also about the tensions between the two countries’ different perspectives on nation building and democratisation processes (Jakubanecs, Supphellen, and thorbjørnsen, 2005; Janmaat, 2000; laba, 1996; Prizel, 1998; Puglisi, 2003; Shulman, 1998; Szporluk, 2000; Velychenko, 1992). Although Russian leaders, in the manner of an older brother, have consistently labelled Ukraine as the central element of Russia’s ‘near abroad’ (cameron and orenstein, 2012; Rywkin, 2003; trenin, 2006), the citizens and their foreign policies preferences have historically (i.e. on gas, on the Georgian War, on the EU and nAto) converged and diverged several times over the course of the last twenty-plus years.
Yet, even though there were sensitive moments during the last twenty-plus years of Ukraine-Russia relations (october 1996 crisis, 2004 orange Revolution, gas crisis of January 2006, gas crisis of January 2009), the events of 2014 (the Euromaidan Protests, the annexation of Crimea, and the ongoing conflict in the Donbas3) are predicted by social scientists to not only sour formal relations between the two states, but also between ‘ordinary’ citizens. While there are many ‘myths’ about the way brother Russians and Ukrainians view the ‘other’ state and its people, the reality is much more complex, permeating with conflict, competition, and ideological disagreements, as in any other family. in such critical times, we must stop and ask: do Russians and Ukrainians view the events of the last year differently? or are there points of convergence? do these events affect the way Russians see Ukraine and Ukrainians see Russia? if so, how? And can we identify any shifts in views overtime from before the 2014 crisis to today? Data on the topic is difficult to find and even more difficult to assess. This is specifically the case when so many contextual variables are in flux and when little, if any, of the available data consists of either a repeated and duplicated schedule of questions, or a panel (following citizens and their views) tracking preferences over time.
Thus, we must scour a variety of polls conducted at different times, by different institutions, to map out the views of Ukrainians and Russians.

This paper analyzes changes in regional electoral behavior and attitudes towards separatism and foreign policy orientation in Ukraine after the “Orange Revolution” and the “Euromaidan,” which turned into a violent internal conflict and one of the biggest international conflicts involving Western countries and Russia. The research question is whether the regional divisions concerning domestic politics, separatism and foreign orientation have changed significantly in Ukraine since the “Orange Revolution” in 2004 and the “Euromaidan” in 2014. This paper employs comparative and statistical analyses of voting results of the 2012, 2007, 2006, and 2002 parliamentary elections, and the 2014, 2010, and 2004 presidential elections, to examine effects of historical legacies, ethnicity, language, age, and economic factors on regional support for pro-nationalist/pro-Western and pro-Russian/pro-communist political parties and presidential candidates. The study also analyses support for separatism in Crimea and Donbas after the “Orange Revolution” and the “Euromaidan.” It uses a brief survey, conducted for this study by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in April and May 2014, to examine determinants of pro-separatist attitudes. The paper also employs Razumkov Center and KIIS surveys to analyze changes in 2002-2014 in regional preferences for joining the European Union (EU), NATO, and a union with Russia. The analysis shows that Ukraine after the “Orange Revolution” remained divided along regional lines in terms of support for political parties and presidential candidates and attitudes towards joining the EU, NATO, and a Russia-led union. After the “Euromaidan,” such divisions in foreign policy orientation and, to a lesser extent, support for presidential candidates and political parties remained. A significant rise in separatist sentiments helped to fuel separatist takeovers of power in Crimea and Donbas and Russian military intervention in these regions.

RESUMO: Este trabalho se propõe a discorrer brevemente sobre parte da produção poética
ucraniana, partindo de seu fundador Taras Chevtchenko, mas com enfoque sobre os poetas
contemporâneos (no contexto do Euromaidan e da guerra atualmente em curso no leste do país). O
olhar aqui recai não só sobre as lutas pela independência, mas também sobre o modo de se pensar a
relação entre um estado e uma nação ucranianos.
Palavras-chave: Ucrânia; poesia contemporânea; Euromaidan.
ABSTRACT: This paper proposes a brief discussion of a small part of Ukraine’s poetry, departing
from its founding father Taras Chevtchenko, but taking a closer look at contemporary poets (in the
context of Euromaidan protests and of the war going on at the easternmost regions of the country
nowadays). The aim is not as much to delve into the fighting, but on the ways of thinking in and
about the Ukrainian state and nation.
Keywords: Ukraine; contemporary poetry; Euromaidan.

This 9-minute long online video appendix with English-language subtitles contains numerous witness testimonies for the Maidan massacre trial and the investigation in Ukraine about snipers in Maidan-controlled buildings during the Maidan massacre on February 20, 2014. Only witness testimonies made public at this trial before the end of August 2018 are included. The official investigation denied existence of such snipers in these Maidan-controlled buildings and areas.   
            This is a video appendix of papers presented at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in Boston and the “Regimes and Societies in Conflict: Eastern Europe and Russia since 1956” conference by the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University and the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies at Uppsala University in 2018 (see Katchanovski, 2018a, 2018b). It also supplements previous studies of the Maidan massacre by the author and video appendixes of trial and investigation testimonies by 43 wounded Maidan protesters about snipers in Maidan-controlled locations and over 70 such witness testimonies in the media and social media. (See Katchanovski, 2015, 2016, 2017).

The EuroMaidan in Kyiv (late 2013–early 2014) resulted in a major political and security crisis, eventually precipitating in Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the Kremlin’s (denied) involvement in a conflict in southeastern Ukraine. In both cases, Russia’s state-sponsored information outlets purposefully called the anti-Kyiv and pro-Russia militants “volunteers” (dobrovotsi) or a “People’s Militia” (Narodnoye Opolcheniye) to conceal the real actors Moscow was using in the theater as proxy forces. This paper will discuss the main actors employed by the Russians at the height of the war in Ukraine, between 2014 and 2015. Specifically, the paper will look into three main groups: the Special Operations Forces (SOF), private military contractors; and (pseudo)Cossack formations.
What follows is a detailed examination of the role the above-mentioned categories of Moscow-backed irregular forces had in the early phases of the hostilities in Crimea and Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk provinces of eastern Ukraine). Moreover, this study will describe the impact of these irregular operations on the transformation and maturation of Russian private military contractors and other paramilitary formations.

The crisis in Ukraine has been a truly divisive event. On almost all levels and aspects of the crisis we have witnessed, and continue to witness different understandings and, indeed, narratives of individual events, processes and the crisis in general. Several examples of such narratives stand out, for example, narratives on Crimea, MH17, and Donbas. Principally what we see is a narrative created and disseminated by Kyiv and the post-maidan government, and a (counter)narrative offered by the Ukrainian opposition, and the rebels in Donbas. Narratives also exist at the international, global level, with the United States and the European Union generally, though not quite always, supporting and promoting the Kyiv narrative, whilst Russia and some anti-western sympathisers, support the opposition/rebel narrative. It is also important to note that often the narrative does not start within Ukraine itself, but is created outside and then brought to Ukraine. One such narrative that exists at the local, national, and international level is that of fascism in post-maidan Ukraine. The different narratives on this have been very visible within media, but far less widely discussed than those of Crimea or MH17. The aim of this essay, therefore, is to put forward the main narratives on fascism in Ukraine, particularly supposed fascism in government. The essay seeks primarily to highlight the key narratives and the actors who create them, whilst some analysis of the validity and truth of the different narratives will also be offered, particularly analysing whether post-maidan Ukraine has indeed embraced fascist elements and personalities, what role such people play, and what does this mean for Ukraine.

The massacre of the protesters and the police during the “Euromaidan” mass protests on February 18-20, 2014 in Ukraine contributed to the overthrow of the Ukrainian government and ultimately to a start of the civil war in Donbas, Russian military interventions in Crimea and Donbas, the annexation of Crimea and an international conflict between the West and Russia. However, in spite of its importance to the politics of Ukraine and global politics this mass killing have been central subject of only a couple of studies. These studies concluded that the Maidan massacre of the protesters was a false flag operation and that far right organizations were involved in the mass killing of both police and the protesters. However, the dominant narrative promoted by the governments and the media in Ukraine and the West attributed the Maidan massacre of the protesters to the government forces and mostly ignored killings of the police. The official investigation by the Prosecutor General Office of Ukraine charged Berkut special police commanders and members with the massacre of the Madian protesters on Viktor Yanukovych orders and publicly stated that Berkut policemen and Internal Troops servicemen were killed by unknown persons of unknown allegiance.

The research question is as follows: What does a large volume of various evidence made public for the first time by the Maidan massacre trials and government investigations reveal about which of the political forces were involved in this politically crucial case of mass killing? This paper analyzes more than 350 hours of video recordings of the Maidan massacre trials and information concerning investigations of this massacre in over 2,000 official court decisions in Ukraine, media interviews of prosecutors, Maidan and Berkut lawyers, and Ukrainian media reports about these trials and investigations. It examines court testimonies of wounded protesters and relatives of the killed protesters, results of forensic ballistic and medical examinations and investigative experiments, and videos and photos of the Maidan massacre shown during the trials. A video appendix includes brief relevant videos of the Maidan massacre and information from the recordings of the Maidan massacre trial. The 55 minute long online video appendix with added English-language subtitles is compiled from brief synchronized segments of on-site reports by American, Belgian, Belarusian, British, Finish, French, Dutch, German, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian TV correspondents and social media videos by various Maidan protesters who filmed this massacre on February 20, 2014.

The study finds that the Maidan massacre investigations and trials revealed a variety of evidence, such as results of forensic examinations and testimonies of many wounded protesters, which shows that at least the absolute majority of the protesters were killed and wounded from Maidan-controlled locations and that the investigation and trials were for this reason stonewalled. The analysis  shows patterns of ineffective and delayed Maidan massacre trials and the GPU investigations, trumped-up charges, and ignoring, reversing, and covering-up of the evidence, which was revealed by the GPU own investigation and which pointed to the massacre of the protesters and the police by “snipers” in the Maidan-controlled buildings and not by the Berkut police. The paper discusses implications of this study for understanding the Maidan massacre and the conflict in Ukraine and the international conflict over Ukraine.

Este trabajo consiste en un análisis de los factores y de los actores que llevaron a Ucrania a la actual guerra civil, desde sus precedentes: el Euromaidán y el conflicto Crimea. Dado que es un tema actual, la información es poca y sesgada, por lo que se ha basado, principalmente, en un análisis periodístico y de los trabajos ya realizados acerca de Ucrania antes de estos sucesos. El resultado es una visión total, conjunta y real de los
acontecimientos así como un conocimiento del enfrentamiento entre dos bloques que parecen volver a chocar: Occidente y Rusia.

Recognize the problem that is neither a fiction of Russian propaganda, nor it can be reduced to the inevitable but temporary effects of the war. Ukrainian radical nationalists’ unique extra-parliamentary power, which is aggravated by their interpenetration with the law-enforcement and weak liberal civil society, present a real danger to human rights and political liberties in Ukraine. The far right contribute to self-destructive nationalist radicalization dynamics destabilizing the political regime in Ukraine which is especially dangerous on the eve of Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019 with unpredictable results.

The article explains the violent radicalization of the initially peaceful Maidan uprising in January 2014 as the result of failure to build efficient leverage against Viktor Yanukovych with nonviolent methods. Maidan lacked critical diversity of nonviolent tactics insofar as directly disruptive methods of noncooperation (e.g., strikes and boycott) remained small-scale and inefficient. The Maidan protest coalition primarily lacked social-organizational resources, i.e. authoritative civil society organizations and strong labor movement, for developing nonviolent leverage that was partially connected to gaps in ideological and regional diversity and partially to unfavorable structural conditions. However, radical nationalists actively participating in the protests possessed a unique combination of resources for initiating and diffusing efficient, coordinated, and strategic violence when it became legitimated by intensifying repressions and disillusionment in the incapacity of the oppositional political parties to propose an efficient strategy against the government. Violent radicalization facilitated geographical expansion of disruption via occupations of governmental buildings in western and central Ukrainian regions that the state was ultimately incapable of containing.

This chapter presents a summary of analysis, evidence, and findings of a study of the “snipers’ massacre” of “Euromaidan” protesters and policemen on the Maidan in Ukraine on February 20, 2014. This mass killing was a turning point in the Ukrainian politics and a tipping point in a conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. This massacre led to an overthrow of the government of Viktor Yanukovych and a Russian annexation in Crimea, a civil war in Donbas in Eastern Ukraine, and Russian military intervention in support of separatists in these regions. The question is which side was involved in the “snipers’ massacre.” This study relies on rational choice and Weberian theories of rational action. It employs interpretative and content analyses of a large number of different sources. The analysis shows that armed groups of concealed Maidan shooters first killed and wounded policemen on the Maidan and then protesters. Armed groups of “snipers” and parts of leadership of the far right organizations, such as the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland, were involved in various capacities in the massacre. This mass killing was misrepresented by the media and the governments in Ukraine and the West.

In the following sections, we explicate Ukraine’s uneven incorporation into the global capitalist system after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We explore Ukrainian capitalism’s internal contradictions and shifts of power between oligarchic blocs, discuss their unfolding in the context of neo-imperialist rivalry between the USA, the EU, and Russia. We zoom in on some of the major outcomes of that dialectic that facilitated a major multilevel crisis of 2013–2014 and led to the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych, Russia’s annexation of the southern peninsula Crimea, and the war in eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. We provide a critical review of the major narratives on the nature and role of Western and Russian imperialisms in Ukraine’s crisis. We conclude with the discussion that we started in the introduction: the one on the nature and varieties of imperialisms in the system of transforming transnational capitalism and the need for careful (re)theorizations of its workings and effects in Ukraine and elsewhere.

This paper analyzes the role of far right in the Ukrainian politics during the “Euromaidan” and the war in Donbas. The issue of the involvement of Ukrainian far right organizations in the “Euromaidan” and the war in Donbas have been politicized and polarized. Russian and separatist politicians and the media often presented the “Euromaidan” as a “fascist coup” and the Maidan government as a “fascist junta.” In contrast, the governments and the mainstream media in Western countries tended to present the role of the far right in the “Euromaidan” and in post-Maidan Ukraine, specifically in the conflict in Donbas, as marginal. Previous academic studies generally reached similar conclusions. They focused on numerical strength and electoral support for the far right parties and ignored other aspects of influence of the radical nationalist and neo-Nazi parties, specifically their role in the political violence, such as the Maidan and Odesa massacres and the war in Donbas. However, the number of academic studies of the contemporary far right in Ukraine is generally limited.
            The research question is as follows: What is the role of the far right in the Ukrainian politics during and after the “Euromaidan”? This study analyzes the involvement of specific Ukrainian radical nationalist and neo-Nazi organizations in the “Euromaidan,” the Odesa massacre, and the war in Donbas, their performance in the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2014 and the 2015 local elections in Ukraine. The analysis focuses on major Ukrainian far right organizations, such as Svoboda (Freedom), the Right Sector, the Social-National Assembly, the White Hammer, the UNA-UNSO, Bratstvo, and C14, and paramilitary formations or special police and National Guard units organized and controlled to various extent by them, such as the Azov regiment, Dnipro, Donbas, Aidar, Sich, and St. Mary’s battalions, and the Volunteer Ukrainian Corps. It uses various sources of data, such as online recordings of live broadcasts and videos of the Maidan and Odesa massacres and the war in Donbas, official database of court decisions in Ukraine concerning investigations of the involvement of the far right in major cases of political violence, video recordings of the Maidan massacre trial, information posted on websites and social media groups of far right organizations, and media reports in Ukrainian, Russian, and English languages.
            The study shows that the far right organizations had significant but minority representation among the Maidan leadership and protesters, the post-Maidan governments, and in the presidential, parliamentary, and local elections. However, the analysis also shows that the far right organizations and football ultras played a key role during violent attacks, such as attempts to storm the presidential administration on December 1, 2013 and the parliament of Ukraine in January and on February 18, 2014. There is also various evidence of the Right Sector involvement in a violent attack of the Berkut police during its highly publicized dispersal of protesters on November 30, 2013. The Right Sector and Svoboda and smaller organizations had a crucial role in the violent overthrow of the Viktor Yanukovych government, in particular, in the Maidan massacre of the protesters and the police on February 18-20, 2014. The study demonstrates that the Right Sector, the Social-National Assembly/ Patriot of Ukraine, and groups of football ultras were involved in the Odesa massacre on May 2, 2014. This paper also shows that the far right organizations and their volunteer battalions and paramilitary units had a significant role in the civil war in Donbas but a comparably minor role in fighting with several regular Russian military units during direct military interventions by Russia in August 2014 and February 2015. Major implications of this study for the Ukrainian politics and the conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine are discussed in the conclusion. This paper implies that the far right has significant but not dominant role in the Ukrainian politics during and after the “Euromaidan.” But far right organizations and their armed units had a key role in major cases of political violence during and after the “Euromaidan,” and they attained ability to overthrow by force the government of the one of the largest European countries.

Ukraine previously experienced significant regional political divisions, including separatism in Crimea and Donbas. However, in contrast to post-communist countries such as Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and former Yugoslavia, prior to 2014 Ukraine was able to avoid a war and a break-up. This study examines the role of separatists, the Yanukovych government, the Maidan opposition and the Maidan government, far-right organizations, Russia, the US, and the EU in the conflict in Donbas. It uses a specially commissioned survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in 2014 to analyse public support for separatism in Donbas, compared to other regions of Ukraine, and the major factors which affect such support. It concludes that all these actors contributed in various ways to the conflict in Donbas, which involved both a civil war and a direct Russian military intervention since August 2014. The study links this conflict to the 'Euromaidan', specifically, the government overthrow by means of the Maidan massacre, and the secession and Russia's annexation of Crimea. The KIIS survey shows that support for separatism is much stronger in Donbas compared to other regions, with the exception of Crimea, and that the break-up of Ukraine is unlikely to extend to its other parts.

The article traces nationalist polarization and divergence within the Ukrainian new left in response to the Maidan and Anti-Maidan protests in 2013–2014, and the military conflict in Eastern Ukraine. The ideological left-wing groups in the protests were too weak to push forward any independent progressive agenda. Instead of moving the respective campaigns to the left, they were increasingly converging with the right themselves and degraded into marginal supporters of either pro-Ukrainian or pro-Russian camps in the conflict. The liberal and libertarian left supported the Maidan movement on the basis of abstract self-organization, liberal values and anti-authoritarianism. In contrast, the Marxist-Leninists attempted to seize political opportunities from supporting more plebeian and decentralized Anti-Maidan protests and reacting to the far-right threat after the Maidan victory. They deluded themselves that Russian nationalists were not as reactionary as their Ukrainian counterparts and that the world-system crisis allowed them to exploit Russian anti-American politics for progressive purposes.

This study focuses on mediated representations of Europe during Euromaidan and the subsequent Ukraine–Russia crisis, analysing empirical material from Ukraine, Poland and Russia. The material includes articles from nine newspapers, diverse in terms of political and journalistic orientation, as well as interviews with journalists, foreign policymakers and experts, drawing also on relevant policy documents as well as online and historical sources.
The material is examined from the following vantage points: Michel Foucault’s discursive theory of power, postcolonial theory, Jürgen Habermas’s theory of the public sphere, Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, Jacques Derrida’s hauntology and Ernesto Laclau’s concept of the empty signifier. The methods of analysis include conceptual history (Reinhart Koselleck), critical linguistics and qualitative discourse analysis (a discourse-historical approach inspired by the Vienna school) and quantitative content analysis (in Klaus Krippendorff’s interpretation).
Historically, the national narratives of Europe in the aforementioned three countries are characterised by dependence on the West that also sparks periods of its rejection. These narratives vacillate between three major poles: idealising admiration, materialist pragmatics and geopolitical demonising. They are not exclusively endemic to one country and have been present in each to some extent. However, weaker actors have tended to lean towards the idealist side because Europe is perceived as a source of important technological and social know-how. Authors in all three countries struggled with defining Europe’s limits, and whilst this problem be- came intertwined with their own identification, Europeanness is typically constructed as a shock wave fading as it travels eastward from an epicentre located somewhere in north-western Europe.
These discourses were reactivated and developed in 2013–2014. In the analysed newspapers, Europe is often understood as a continent (most often in Poland) or identified with the EU (Russia and Ukraine), but there is also a strong pattern of using Europe in reference to values which is weakest in Poland and strongest in Ukraine. Ideologically, the liberal publications in all three countries focus on positive values, whereas the conservative and business newspapers are preoccupied with negative values. Among the posi- tive values, the humanistic ones dominate the Ukrainian newspapers, and the rationalist-technocratic are typical in the Russian sample. The Ukrainian press account for most of the positive coverage of a successful Europe, whereas the Russian press provide most of the negative coverage (Europe as a failing entity and an enemy). Ukrainian and Russian discourses differ sharply on whether the country should adopt European reforms (Ukraine) or not (Russia). The Polish coverage is polarised between positive and negative values.
During and after Euromaidan, Ukrainian journalists used the powerful Europe-as-values concept to actively intervene in the political field and re- contextualise this narrative of Europe as the official foreign policy narrative. This was enabled, paradoxically, by weak professionalism that made a wavering from a neutral stance possible. Compared to this, in Russia the strong discourse on journalist objectivity constrained journalists in their social practice; rather, it is the official discourse that is recontextualised by the media. Polish journalists, ambiguous about their own influence, work in a loop that recontextualises discourses from the media sphere to the political field and vice versa.

The article discusses two far right movements that took part in the Ukrainian revolution in 2014. The author argues that, although the fact of the involvement of the far right in the revolution cannot be denied, the Russian media deliberately exaggerated this involvement to discredit the opposition to former President Viktor Yanukovych. Thus, the articles provides a more nuanced picture of the Ukrainian far right before, during and immediately after the revolution. This research draws on the interviews conducted by the author, video and photographic evidence, online and offline publications, results of public opinion polls, and secondary literature on the Ukrainian far right.

Poruszając kwestie kruchości granic, migracji zarobkowej, zmian krajobrazu politycznego, przemocy, przestrzeni publicznej, natury kompromisu, a także bezkompromisowości jako znikającej formy artystycznej ekspresji, ten numer specjalny opowiada o tożsamości i kwestionuje jakąkolwiek potrzebę identyfikacji we współczesnym świecie.

Ukraine today faces a vicious circle of nationalist radicalization involving mutual reinforcement between far-right groups and the dominant oligarchic pyramids. This has significantly contributed to a post-Euromaidan domestic politics that is not unifying the country but creating divisiveness and damaging Ukrainian relations with its strategically important neighbors. The lack of a clear institutionalized political and ideological boundary between liberal and far-right forces lends legitimacy to the radical nationalist agenda. Moreover, the oligarchic groups exploit radicalizing nationalism not out of any shared ideology but because it threatens their interests less than the liberal reformers. Local deterrents are insufficient to counter the radicalizing trend; Ukraine's far right vastly surpasses liberal parties and NGOs in terms of mobilization and organizational strength. Western pressure is needed on influential Ukrainian figures and political parties in order to help shift Ukraine away from this self-destructive development.

The information given by the purported Georgian snipers in the Italian documentary appears to be generally consistent with various publicly available evidence that I examined in my studies and that was revealed at the Maidan massacre trial. This includes locations of many of the snipers in the Hotel Ukraina and the Music Conservatory, exact calibers of firearms used to massacre protesters, the involvement of the Right Sector-linked special Maidan armed company under Parasiuk's command, and a well-known video of a Maidan leader who was filmed evacuating a Maidan protester with a rifle. My paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association and a new paper recently presented at the World Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities in Columbia University noted statements by former Ukrainian and Georgian senior officials and commanders. They referred to specific Maidan politicians as the massacre organizers and stated that snipers included Georgians and Lithuanians along with special Maidan armed company commander and member, and named some of them or said that their names were My study also noted that one of snipers, whose communication was briefly recorded when they were shooting, had an apparent Caucasian accent. This recording is included in my new 55 minute long video appendix, which contains brief synchronized segments of various videos and evidence from the Maidan massacre trial which all point to snipers in the Maidan-controlled locations: https://youtu.be/z9o-XTOVDgA?t=47m34s But I have no ability to do a definite verification if the Georgians who confessed in the Italian documentary were the Maidan snipers. This can be done by investigators, government officials, and journalists in the West, Ukraine and Georgia. My academic study only analyzes publicly available evidence and is concerned with the research question as to which side of the conflict was involved in the massacre and not with involvement of specific persons and with identities of specific snipers and massacre organizers. But is striking that such bombshell public confessions identifying purported snipers and organizers of the Maidan massacre are ignored by the governments and nearly all media in the West and in Ukraine, in contrast to reactions to statements of sexual harassment and abuse of Western politicians and other public figures. Similarly, over 100 testimonies of wounded protesters revealed by the Maidan massacre trial and investigations and close to 100 publicly available testimonies of eyewitnesses point to snipers in the Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled locations.

Il y a plus d’un an maintenant, l’ex-gouvernement ukrainien tournait le dos à l’accord de partenariat de l’Union européenne pour accepter l’aide financière de la Russie, plus conséquente et surtout urgemment nécessaire pour maintenir à flot un pays en train de couler économiquement. C’était le début de l’Euro-Maïdan. Cette protestation tourna vite à l’affrontement entre le régime et ses opposants. La suite est connue : destitution du président Lanoukovitch et début d’une véritable guerre civile entre les forces ukrainiennes et celles des rebelles de l’est du pays, le Donbass, désireux de faire sécession. Comme la Crimée l’a fait avant de demander son rattachement à la Russie. Actuellement, le conflit est toujours en cours et il est difficile de prévoir son évolution à court terme.
Ces événements ont souvent été perçus chez nous via le filtre déformant d’une méfiance envers la Russie, ou plutôt envers Vladimir Poutine, son président. Ce conflit ne peut pourtant pas être résumé à un affrontement, caricatural, entre une Ukraine devenue démocrate et une Russie aux visées expansionnistes. Nous allons voir que les racines et les causes de la guerre en cours sont bien plus profondes que cela.

In Anlehnung an Modelle des spatial turn der Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften zeigt die vorliegende Untersuchung, wie literarische Raumkonstruktionen für die Verarbeitung und gedankliche Einordnung der politischen Transformationsprozesse sowie für die Erprobung neuer Identitätsmodelle in der Ukraine und in Russland instrumentalisiert wird. Die Arbeit analysiert literarische Konstrukte wie „die russische Welt [russkij mir]“, „die heilige Rus’ [svjataja Rus’]“, „Neurussland [Novorossija]“ und „Eurasien“, die den politischen Diskurs der Ära Putin dominieren, und kontrastiert diese mit den Raummodellen von „Ostmitteleuropa“ sowie der „Europäisierung“ der Ukraine in den Schriften ukrainischer Literaten. Die in dieser Weise semantisierten Kulturräume determinieren maßgeblich die politische und kulturelle Selbstverortung der beiden ehemaligen Sowjetrepubliken. Die Arbeit geht im Weiteren der Frage nach, wie diese Selbstverortung in den Werken gegenwärtiger russischer und ukrainischer Prosa-Autoren wiederum auf die Nations- und Gemeinschaftsbilder, die Gesellschafts-Ideale sowie die Rechts- und Gerechtigkeitskonzepte einwirkt.

The article traces the evolution of Ukrainian nationalism from the end of 2013 to the end of 2014 under the influence of mass protests against the antidemocratic regime of President Yanukovych (Euromaidan) and Russia’s intervention into Crimea and Donbas. The term “nationalism” is used in the article in a broad sense encompassing elite ideology and politics as well as mass feelings and identities. The analysis of elite “nationalism” is based on a close reading of Facebook posts and other texts of the protest activists, and mass discourse is reconstructed with the help of sociological surveys. The author argues that democratic protest against the Yanukovych regime included a nationalistic element articulated as Ukrainian liberation from Russian dictate. He also shows that the transition from peaceful to violent protest was accompanied by an appropriation of the tradition of armed nationalist resistance to the Soviet occupation of Ukraine after World War II. This appropriation, however, was not limited exclusively to ethnic Ukrainians – it reflected and reinforced a rejection of the Soviet mythology of
collaborationism of Ukrainian nationalists of the past with the Nazis. At the same time it made evident the deeply inclusive nature of modern Ukrainian anti-imperial nationalism, the most obvious proof of which is the support it enjoys among Ukrainian Jews or even among Jews who have preserved their ties to the country since leaving Ukraine. Russian aggression further contributed to the rise of inclusivity of Ukrainian nationalism, which now embraces many Russian and Russian-speaking citizens. Being alienated from Russia as a state and even as a people by Russia’s aggressive politics, these citizens nevertheless do not exhibit a similar alienation from the Russian language. Hence the new border between Ukrainians and Russians is political rather than linguistic. In the author’s view, this fact confirms the inclusive nature of Ukrainian identity and the nationalism that contributes to its formation.

An overview of Ukraine interms of nationhood and identity, and how this impacts upon current events in Ukraine, particularly with regards to Euromaidan and the on-going conflict. Much focus is given to linguistics and historical memory and interpretation and how this effects and creates divisions within Ukraine. Furthermore, the question of a European Ukraine is looked at, particularly in the current conflict context.

Based on a case study of Euromaidan Ukrainian nationalism, we argue that civic nationalism may derive more from a commitment to a particular political event than from a set of stable political ideas and principles. We concur that civic nationalism can be as exclusivist as ethnocultural nationalism, and we develop specific criteria and mechanisms of civic exclusion originating from the unique experience of participating in the Euromaidan event. Challenging the conceptual dichotomy of civic vs. ethnocultural nationalism, we suggest that these categories are still fruitful; however, they should be re-conceptualized. We try to clarify the relations between civic and ethnocultural forms of nationalism instead of simply considering them in opposition to each other. We show that a belief in the existence of a civic nation can legitimize the practices of othering, among them ethnocultural exclusion, that are undertaken in the name of a civic nation.

This is an attempt of a systematic estimation of the far right participation in Maidan protests based on a unique dataset of protest events in Ukraine during President Viktor Yanukovych’s rule. The data presented contradict the thesis supported by most of the experts on Ukrainian far right that the far right did not play any crucial or even significant role in Maidan protests. The data indicate that the far right Svoboda party was the most active collective agent in Maidan protest events, while the Right Sector was the most active group in Maidan confrontation and violence. Protests with the participation of the far right were not isolated events on the margins of larger ‘peaceful and democratic’ protest. The data indicate the timing and location of the most intense far right activity, which has previously not received much attention. In general, it highlights the importance of the underestimated, but highly intense and large-scale, Maidan protests in Ukrainian regions beyond the events in Kiev city centre. Finally, it points to how far right participation in Maidan grew from the moderate opposition parties’ increasing cooperation with Svoboda.

Ukraine previously experienced significant regional political divisions, including separatism in Crimea and Donbas. However, in contrast to post-communist countries such as Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and former Yugoslavia, prior to 2014 Ukraine was able to avoid a war and a break-up. This study examines the role of separatists, the Yanukovych government, the Maidan opposition and the Maidan government, far right organizations, Russia, the US, and the EU in this conflict. It uses a specially commissioned survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in 2014 to analyse public support for separatism in Donbas, compared to other regions of Ukraine, and the major factors which affect such support. It concludes that all these actors contributed in various ways to the conflict in Donbas, which involved both a civil war and a direct Russian military intervention since August 2014. The study links this conflict to the " Euromaidan, " specifically, the government overthrow by means of the Maidan massacre, and the secession and Russia's annexation of Crimea. The KIIS survey shows that support for separatism is much stronger in Donbas compared to other regions, with the exception of Crimea, and that the break-up of Ukraine is unlikely to extend to its other parts.

At first the EuroMaidan, seemed like something we have seen before: the ‘Orange Revolution’. We were brought back to 23 November 2004, when observers of Ukrainian politics were shocked when they witnessed a sea of ‘ordinary’ Ukrainians, joined activists and opposition party members in a moment of mass mobilization. While Ukraine had previously experienced several smaller protest events, such as the 1986 Chornobyl disaster protests, the 1991 Revolution on the Granite, and the 2001 Ukraine Without Kuchma protests, the sheer size of the 2004 protests and the fact that participation quickly shifted to a majority made of ‘ordinary’ Ukrainians was unprecedented (Onuch 2014a). First heralded as a democratic awakening and the first step to Europeanization, but after the election of Viktor Yanukovych (the villain of the ‘Orange Revolution’) as president in 2010, academics agreed that for a variety of reasons, including protest fatigue, Ukraine would not see another mass-­‐‑mobilization any time soon (Meirowitz and Tucker 2013). Thus, when the November 2013 protests grew to 800,000, political scientists had to go back to the drawing board. It was happening again, and again they did not see it coming. While it seemed like déjà vu, it was very different and not least because it was happening with the events of 2004 as the precedent. This chapter’s aim is to analyse and contextualizes the EuroMaidan as a critical case of mass protest, by placing it in comparative reference to the ‘Orange Revolution’. First, the chapter will briefly outline the data used. Second, the chapter will highlight some key writing on mobilization and activism in Ukraine and identify potential contributions of this analysis to the literature. The majority of the text will assess the EuroMaidan mobilization. Employing interview and focus groups data collected by the author, we will be able to contrast and compare the parameters and trajectories of two protest waves (duration, location, and geographical diffusion); the central actors involved in the mobilization process and their main claims. At each step highlighting the convergence and divergence between the 2004 and 2013/14 mass mobilizations. Finally, once the main boundaries of the mobilization have been mapped out, the chapter will address the recent focus among the media and social scientists alike on: the rise of the right, the rise of violence, and the ‘new’ role of social media in the EuroMaidan mobilizations. This initial analysis seeks to provide a blue print for larger studies of the EuroMaidan mobilizations and in the conclusion will highlight key hypotheses for future testing.