02.03.2014
During the last months the Ukrainians were struggling for establishing democracy in their country. The protest called Maidan faced unprecedental police violence, repressions and terror organized by the state aparatus of Ukraine. The protesters were beaten, abducted, tortured, hundreds of them were killed by special police forces, criminals and snipers. Millions of the Ukrainians raised against the corrupted oligarchic bloody regime of Yanukovych, which was supported by the Kremlin, and they won.
This genuinely emancipative uprising of the people was fundamentally European — the very idea of Europe was reclaimed on Maidan. The Demos of Ukraine was fighting against a neo-feudal oligarchy and proved to the whole world that real democracy is alive today. A new Europe was born on Maidan — a Europe of solidarity, dignity, self-organization and freedom.
On the 1st of March 2014 Russian authorities officially declared an armed invasion onto the Ukrainian territory. During last days Russian troops intervened in Crimea, blocking the airports, media, administrative buildings, settlements of the Ukrainian army and borders of Ukraine. We are observing now a military counter-revolution as an answer to the Ukrainian democratic revolution, a Russian putch conducted by Putin’s fascist regime on an international scale.
We demand from the Russian authorities to stop the armed invasion into Ukraine and to withdraw the Russian troops from its territory! The right to define the future destiny of Ukraine belongs to its citizens!
Vasyl Cherepanyn is teaching at the Cultural Studies Department, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and is Director of Visual Culture Research Center in Kyiv.
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