UKRAINE
Ukraine between two futures
Ukraine was moving toward an Association Agreement with the European Union while facing mounting pressure from Moscow. When President Viktor Yanukovych’s government suspended preparations to sign, a geopolitical decision became a public breaking point.
The protests that followed would not stay confined to a single square or a single demand. Over the next three months, Maidan grew from a demonstration about Europe into a reckoning over dignity, corruption and the right of Ukrainians to choose their own future. The choice between a European future and an older politics of corruption would be fought for in the streets of Kyiv — and, within eight years, on battlefields across the country.