I hardly know where to start! So much has happened in the last 24 hours.
A video was posted on the Russian-language social media site “vkontakte”, recorded by one of the Berkut special forces soldiers, showing a group of Berkut forcing an arrested protestor to stand naked in below freezing temperatures while they took pictures of him for several minutes. While you might think Berkut shooting protesters earlier in the week, resulting in the death of 2 men from gunshot wounds, might be enough to get the rest of the country riled up, many people still bought into the government propaganda that the protestors instigated the violence and brought it on themselves, or that they weren’t really shot and it was made-up propaganda by the protestors themselves. Then it was confirmed that bodies of men who had disappeared in the night were found in a forest outside Kyiv, with signs of torture having been inflicted before they died. That still wasn’t enough for some people.
Then the video went viral very quickly, and was shown not only online but also on all but 2 of the Ukrainian national TV channels. It’s very disturbing for many reasons, but I suspect what will be most scandalous to Americans will be the uncensored original video that yes, shows him naked. Please be scandalized instead by the offensiveness of the government employees in this video, and not the prisoner’s genitalia.
This video set the people all across the country off last night. Even in the deepest regions of the country where support is strongest for the ruling party, people could not stand what had been done. Demonstrations broke out all over the country, and in several regions (called “oblasts”, which are kind of like a “state” in the U.S. but not nearly as autonomous; they have governors appointed by the president), people stormed the regional administration buildings and forced the governors to resign. As of 3:30pm on Friday, January 24, this map shows how the revolution is spreading across the country.
Solid blue oblasts/regions are still under the Party of Regions (ruling party) – 10
Red are under siege: 6
Pink have active mass demonstrations: 3 (including Kyiv region, the red splotch in the middle of one of the pink oblasts)
Blue/yellow (the colors of the Ukrainian flag) are under the people’s control (in the words of the image author): 6
Two nights ago, the opposition met with the president and agreed to a “cease fire” until 8pm on Thursday. Last night, the opposition leaders met with the president again for negotiations.
Sidebar: One of the opposition leaders is Vitaly Klitschko, heavyweight boxing champ, which is probably confusing outside of Ukraine but he’s actually a really smart, savvy guy (has the highest degree possible in Ukraine, sometimes called a PhD but it’s different from an American PhD because their post-graduate education system is quite different from ours, but in any case, the guy is smart, multilingual, and is absolutely non-corrupt, a rarity on any side of the political sphere here).
Last night’s meeting went well beyond 8pm, yet everyone stayed calm and peaceful. I think it was after 11pm when the opposition leaders finally emerged and went on stage at Maidan. No progress had been made at all, but the leaders had agreed to more talks with the president in the coming days and asked the people to continue the truce. Later in the night, the tens of thousands of people gathered held a “people’s vote” and decided to not continue talks with the president (as he obviously has no intentions of any real negotiations or compromises, its just a farce and/or stall tactics).
Overnight, the protestors in Kyiv expanded their occupied territory, which sounds like something extreme but, if you can remember Maidan, you know we’re not talking a big piece of land but it’s both symbolically and politically important. It’s the heart of the city. And it’s surrounded by government buildings. So the occupation extended to the next street over, where the fighting has been, the street on which the parliament is located (although they don’t occupy that far up onto the street, the Berkut are protecting the parliament), and they moved further up the street above Maidan. They also occupied the Ministry of Agriculture building, which is just next to Maidan.
The map in this article may help you understand the geography. The occupation now extends to European Square, just above Maidan and below the police line (not indicated in this picture since it was made yesterday).
Some more English-language sources, in addition to the ones I mention below are:
Spilno TV
Maidan Translations blog (although a few days behind)
Global Voices Ukraine – I especially like this site because they translate local language sources and blogosphere/social media chatter, but their staff has gotten smaller and they don’t post as much as they used to 😦
You can also follow me on Facebook, I am one of many ex-pats helping to translate news and posts and disseminate to the English-speaking world.
I typically post only for friends, but am trying to remember to make my posts about Ukraine public so others can follow and re-post.
Anka in Kyiv 