"The next generation of revolution" is here with Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom (Зима у вогні: Боротьба України за свободу). This documentary film co-produced and directed by Evgeny Afineevsky. Over 93 days in Ukraine, what started as peaceful student demonstrations became a violent revolution and full-fledged civil rights movement.
Ukraine had always been a nation wedged between the east and west. Similar forms of what constitutes the current territorial borders of Ukraine have existed in the past, but, in 1991, they achieved independence from the Soviet Union which had collapsed. Despite their independence, the country was never fully free from the grasp of the Kremlin. During the 1990s and early 2000s, Ukrainian politics was a no-brainer contest between the powerful former Communist party elites and the hapless intellectuals/Ukrainian freedom fighters. In the 2004 elections, Yanukovych was fraudulently declared the winner which resulted in peaceful protests at the Maidan (Independence Square in Kyiv). This led to the changing of the guard in an event also known as The Orange Revolution. After the Viktor Yushchenko/Yulia Tymoshenko coalition was sworn in, Ukraine had a very difficult time finding its feet. This led to a poor-performing economy but most importantly, bickering between the new President and Prime Minister. In 2010, Yanukovych narrowly defeated Tymoshenko in a bitterly-contested election cycle and after he took office, he began to settle scores with his political enemies. Most notable was the former Prime Minister being handed a prison sentence on corruption charges.
By 2013, discontent with Yanukovych and his cronies had grown (they had stolen a substantial amount of Ukraine's national assets for their personal gain). When the President did a u-turn on his election promise to have closer ties with the European Union by rejecting an E.U. Association Agreement in favour of joining the Customs Union with Russia, the Ukrainian people took to the streets in a peaceful protest to demonstrate their desire to join the western world. This resulted in the Yanukovych Administration reacting in a violent manner by sending the Berkut to brutally suppress the protestors. What would later follow was a prolonged period of bloodshed over the brutal winter with more than seven-hundred deaths and thousands injured. After President Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia, a more pro-western government was formed and many stated that the Ukrainian nation went through a process of rebirth. The joys of ousting an extremely corrupt group of elites would not last long as the Crimean peninsula was annexed by Russia and pro-Russian separatist forces sparked a deadly war in the Donbass, Eastern Ukraine. The latter has been called Europe's forgotten war with more than thirteen-thousand deaths and more than a million displaced. Currently, the pro-Russian forces occupy approximately 7% of Ukraine's territory.
Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom is an eloquent, agitating and profoundly moving chronicle of Euromaidan and its participants. It provides historical context, tracking the conflict from Ukraine to the confrontations between resistance groups and the oppressive Russian Imperialists, all leading to the ultimate fight for independence.
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