Euromaidan (; Ukrainian: Євромайдан, romanised: Yevromaidan, IPA: [ˌjɛu̯romɐjˈdɑn], lit. 'Euro Square'), or the Maidan Uprising, was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on 21 November 2013 with large protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kyiv. The protests were sparked by President Viktor Yanukovych's sudden decision not to sign the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement, instead choosing closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. Ukraine's parliament had overwhelmingly approved of finalising the Agreement with the EU, but Russia had put pressure on Ukraine to reject it. The scope of the protests widened, with calls for the resignation of Yanukovych and the Azarov government. Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption, abuse of power, human rights violations, and the influence of oligarchs. Transparency International named Yanukovych as the top example of corruption in the world. The violent dispersal of protesters on 30 November caused further anger. Euromaidan was the largest democratic mass movement in Europe since 1989 and led to the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. During the uprising, Independence Square (Maidan) in Kyiv was a huge protest camp occupied by thousands of protesters and protected by makeshift barricades. It had kitchens, first aid posts and broadcasting facilities, as well as stages for speeches, lectures, debates and performances. It was guarded by 'Maidan Self-Defense' units made up of volunteers in improvised uniform and helmets, carrying shields and armed with sticks, stones and petrol bombs. Protests were also held in many other parts of Ukraine. In Kyiv, there were clashes with police on 1 December; and police assaulted the camp on 11 December. Protests increased from mid-January, in response to the government introducing draconian anti-protest laws. There were deadly clashes on Hrushevsky Street on 19–22 January. Protesters then occupied government buildings in many regions of Ukraine. The uprising climaxed on 18–20 February, when fierce fighting in Kyiv between Maidan activists and police resulted in the deaths of almost 100 protesters and 13 police. As a result, Yanukovych and the parliamentary opposition signed an agreement on 21 February to bring about an interim unity government, constitutional reforms and early elections. Police abandoned central Kyiv that afternoon, then Yanukovych and other government ministers fled the city that evening. The next day, parliament removed Yanukovych from office and installed an interim government. The Revolution of Dignity was soon followed by the Russian annexation of Crimea and pro-Russian unrest in Eastern Ukraine, eventually escalating into the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Overview
The demonstrations began on the night of 21 November 2013, when protests erupted in the capital Kyiv. The protests were launched following the Ukrainian government's suspension of preparations for signing the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement in favour of closer economic relations with Russia and rejection of draft laws which would have allowed the release of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko. The shift away from the European Union (EU) was preceded by a campaign of threats, insults and preemptive trade restrictions from Russia. After a few days of demonstrations, an increasing number of university students joined the protests. The Euromaidan has been characterised as an event of major political symbolism for the European Union itself, particularly as "the largest ever pro-European rally in history." The protests continued despite heavy police presence, regular sub-freezing temperatures, and snow. Escalating violence from government forces in the early morning of 30 November caused the level of protests to rise, with 400,000–800,000 protesters demonstrating in Kyiv on the weekends of 1 and 8 December, according to Russia's opposition politician Boris Nemtsov. In the preceding weeks, protest attendance had fluctuated from 50,000 to 200,000 during organised rallies. Violent riots took place on 1 December and from 19 January through 25 January in response to police brutality and government repression. Starting 23 January, several Western Ukrainian oblast (province) government buildings and regional councils were occupied in a revolt by Euromaidan activists. In the Russophone cities of Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk, protesters also tried to take over their local government buildings and were met with considerable resistance from both police and government supporters. According to journalist Lecia Bushak, writing in the 18 February 2014 issue of Newsweek magazine,
EuroMaidan [had] grown into something far bigger than just an angry response to the fallen-through EU deal. It's now about ousting Yanukovych and his corrupt government; guiding Ukraine away from its 200-year-long, deeply intertwined and painful relationship with Russia; and standing up for basic human rights to protest, speak and think freely and to act peacefully without the threat of punishment. Late February marked a turning point when many members of the president's party fled or defected, causing it to lose its majority in the Verkhovna Rada, the country's national parliament. A sufficient number of opposition members remained to form the necessary quorum, allowing parliament to pass a series of laws that removed police from Kyiv, canceled anti-protest operations, restored the 2004 constitution, freed political detainees, and removed President Yanukovych from office. Yanukovych then fled to Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv, refusing to recognise the parliament's decisions. The parliament assigned early elections for May 2014. In early 2019, a Ukrainian court found Yanukovych guilty of treason. Yanukovych was also charged with asking Vladimir Putin to send Russian troops to invade Ukraine after he had fled the country. The charges have had little practical effect on Yanukovych, who has lived in exile in the Russian city of Rostov since fleeing Ukraine under armed guard in 2014.
Background
=== Name history === The term "Euromaidan" was initially used as a hashtag on Twitter after a Twitter account named Euromaidan was created on the first day of the protests. The title soon became popular across international media. The name is composed of two parts: "Euro", which is short for Europe, reflecting the pro-European aspirations of the protestors, and "maidan", referring to Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), a large square in downtown Kyiv where the protests mostly took place. The word "Maidan" is a Persian word meaning "square" or "open space". It is a loanword in many other languages and was adopted into the Ukrainian language during the period of Ottoman Empire influence on Ukraine. During the protests, the word "Maidan" acquired the meaning of the public practice of politics and protest. When Euromaidan first began, media outlets in Ukraine dubbed the movement Eurorevolution (Ukrainian: Єврореволюція, Russian: Еврореволюция). The term "Ukrainian Spring" was also occasionally used during the protests, echoing the term Arab Spring.
Initial causes
On 30 March 2012, the European Union (EU) and Ukraine initiated an Association Agreement; however, EU leaders later stated that the agreement would not be ratified unless Ukraine addressed concerns over a "stark deterioration of democracy and the rule of law", including the imprisonment of Yulia Tymoshenko and Yuriy Lutsenko in 2011 and 2012. In the months leading up to the protests, Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych urged the parliament to adopt laws so that Ukraine would meet the EU's criteria. On 25 September 2013, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Rybak expressed confidence that parliament would pass all the laws needed to fulfil the EU's criteria since, except for the Communist Party of Ukraine, "[t]he Verkhovna Rada has united around these bills." According to Pavlo Klimkin, one of the Ukrainian negotiators of the Association Agreement, initially "the Russians simply did not believe [the association agreement with the EU] could come true. They didn't believe in our ability to negotiate a good agreement and didn't believe in our commitment to implement a good agreement." In mid-August 2013, Russia changed its customs regulations on imports from Ukraine such that on 14 August 2013, the Russian Customs Service stopped all goods coming from Ukraine and prompted politicians and media to view the move as the start of a trade war against Ukraine to prevent the country from signing the Association Agreement with the EU. Ukrainian Industrial Policy Minister Mykhailo Korolenko reported on 18 December 2013 that the new Russian trade restrictions had caused Ukraine's exports to drop by $1.4 billion (or a 10% year-on-year decrease through the first 10 months of the year). In November 2013, the State Statistics Service of Ukraine recorded that in comparison with the same months of 2012, in 2013 industrial production in Ukraine had fallen by 4.9% in October, 5.6% in September, and 5.4% in August, with an year-total loss of 1.8% industrial output compared to 2012 levels. On 21 November 2013, the Ukrainian government decree suspended preparations for the signing of the Association Agreement. The reason given was that in the previous months, Ukraine had experienced "a drop in industrial production and our relations with CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] countries". The government also assured, "Ukraine will resume preparing the agreement when the drop in industrial production and our relations with Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries are compensated by the European market." According to Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, "the extremely harsh conditions" of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan (presented by the IMF on 20 November 2013), which included big budget cuts and a 40% increase in gas bills, had been the last argument in favour of the government's decision to suspend preparations for signing the Association Agreement. On 7 December 2013, the IMF clarified that it was not insisting on a single-stage increase in natural gas tariffs in Ukraine by 40%, but recommended that they be gradually raised to an economically justified level while compensating the poorest segments of the population for the losses from the increase by strengthening targeted social assistance. The same day, IMF Resident Representative in Ukraine Jerome Vacher stated that this particular IMF loan was worth US$4 billion and that it would be linked with "policy, which would remove disproportions and stimulate growth". President Yanukovych attended the 28–29 November 2013 EU summit in Vilnius, where the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement was originally planned to be finalised but the agreement was not signed. Both Yanukovych and high level EU officials signalled that they wanted to sign the Association Agreement at a later date. Yanukovych later explained to his entourage the decision was the result of an exchange with Russian president Vladimir Putin, who had allegedly threatened to occupy Crimea and a sizeable part of southeastern Ukraine, including the Donbas, if he signed the EU agreement. In an interview with American journalist Lally Weymouth for The Washington Post, Ukrainian billionaire businessman and opposition leader Petro Poroshenko stated:
From the beginning, I was one of the organizers of the Maidan. My television channel—Channel 5—played a tremendously important role. We gave the opportunity to the journalists to tell the truth.... On the 11th of December, when we had [U.S. Assistant Secretary of State] Victoria Nuland and [E.U. diplomat] Catherine Ashton in Kyiv, during the night they started to storm the Maidan. I put my car in front of the riot police. On 11 December 2013, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov announced that he had asked for €20 billion (US$27 billion) in loans and financial aid to offset the cost of the EU deal. The EU was willing to offer €610 million (US$838 million) in loans with the condition of major reforms to Ukrainian laws and regulations while Russia was willing to offer US$15 billion in loans and cheaper gas prices with no legal reform preconditions.
Demands
On 29 November, a formal resolution by protest organisers declared three demands:
The formation of a coordinating committee to communicate with the European community. A statement indicating that the president, parliament, and the Cabinet of Ministers were not capable of carrying out a geopolitically strategic course of development for the state and demanding Yanukovych's resignation. The cessation of political repression against EuroMaidan activists, students, civic activists and opposition leaders. The resolution stated that on 1 December, on the 22nd anniversary of Ukraine's independence referendum, the group would gather at noon on Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) to announce their further course of action. After the forced police dispersal of all protesters from Maidan Nezalezhnosti on the night of 30 November, the dismissal of Minister of Internal Affairs Vitaliy Zakharchenko became one of the protesters' main demands. Ukrainian students nationwide also demanded the dismissal of Minister of Education Dmytro Tabachnyk after a draft law potentially increasing tuition fees was proposed. A petition to the United States' White House demanding sanctions against Viktor Yanukovych and Ukrainian government ministers gathered over 100,000 signatures in four days. On 5 December, Batkivshchyna faction leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk stated,
Our three demands to the Verkhovna Rada and the president remained unchanged: the resignation of the government; the release of all political prisoners, first and foremost; [the release of former Ukrainian Prime Minister] Yulia Tymoshenko; and [the release of] nine individuals [who were illegally convicted after being present at a rally on Bankova Street on December 1]; the suspension of all criminal cases; and the arrest of all Berkut officers who were involved in the illegal beating up of children on Maidan Nezalezhnosti. The opposition also demanded that the government resume negotiations with the IMF for a loan that they saw as key to helping Ukraine "through economic troubles that have made Yanukovych lean toward Russia".
Timeline of the events
The Euromaidan protest movement began late at night on 21 November 2013 as a peaceful protest. The 1,500 protesters were summoned following a Facebook post by a journalist, Mustafa Nayyem, calling for a rally against the government.
=== Protests in Kyiv === On 30 November 2013, protests were dispersed violently by some 1,500 Berkut troops and riot police units. On 1 December, more than half a million Kyivans joined the protests in order to defend the students "and to protect society in the face of crippling authoritarianism", and through December, further clashes with the authorities and political ultimatums by the opposition ensued. This culminated in a series of anti-protest laws by the government on 16 January 2014 and further rioting on Hrushevskoho Street. Early February 2014 saw a bombing of the Trade Unions Building, as well as the formation of "Self Defense" teams by protesters.
1 December 2013 protests
11 December 2013 assault on Maidan
Hrushevsky Street protests
On 19 January, up to 200,000 protesters gathered in central Kyiv to oppose the new anti-protest laws, dubbed the Dictatorship Laws. Many protesters ignored the face concealment ban by wearing party masks, hard hats and gas masks. They attempted to march from the Maidan to the parliament buildings. Fierce clashes broke out on Hrushevsky Street when the protest march was blocked by riot police. The violent standoff continued for three days, during which three protesters were shot dead by riot police.
February 2014: Revolution
The deadliest clashes were on 18–20 February, which saw the most severe violence in Ukraine since it regained independence. Thousands of protesters advanced towards parliament, led by activists with shields and helmets, and were fired on by the Berkut and police snipers. Almost 100 were killed. On 21 February, an agreement was signed by Yanukovych and leaders of the parliamentary opposition (Vitaly Klitschko, Arseny Yatsenyuk, Oleh Tyahnybok) under the mediation of EU and Russian representatives. There was to be an interim unity government formed, constitutional reforms to reduce the president's powers, and early elections. Protesters were to leave occupied buildings and squares, and the government would not apply a state of emergency. The United States supported a stipulation that Yanukovych remain president in the meantime, but Maidan protesters demanded his resignation. The signing was witnessed by Foreign Ministers of Poland, Germany and France. The Russian representative would not sign the agreement. The next day, 22 February, Yanukovych fled to Donetsk and Crimea and parliament voted to remove him from office. On 24 February, Yanukovych arrived in Russia.
Protests across Ukraine
A 24 November 2013 protest in Ivano-Frankivsk saw several thousand protestors gather at the regional administration building. No classes were held in the universities of western Ukrainian cities such as Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Uzhhorod. Protests also took place in other large Ukrainian cities, such as Kharkiv, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk (now Dnipro), and Luhansk. The rally in Lviv in support of the integration of Ukraine into the EU was initiated by the students of local universities. This rally saw 25–30 thousand protesters gather on Liberty Avenue in Lviv. The organisers planned to continue this rally until the 3rd Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 28–29 November 2013. A rally in Simferopol, which drew around 300, saw nationalists and Crimean Tatars unite to support European integration; the protesters sang both the Ukrainian national anthem and the anthem of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen. Seven people were injured after a tent encampment in Dnipropetrovsk was ordered cleared by court order on 25 November and it appeared that thugs had undertaken to perform the clearance. Officials estimated the number of attackers to be 10–15, and police did not intervene in the attacks. Similarly, police in Odesa ignored calls to stop the demolition of Euromaidan camps in the city by a group of 30, and instead removed all parties from the premises. Fifty police officers and men in plain clothes also drove out a Euromaidan protest in Chernihiv the same day. On 25 November, in Odesa, 120 police raided and destroyed a tent encampment made by protesters at 5:20 in the morning. The police detained three of the protesters, including the leader of the Odesa branch of Democratic Alliance, Alexei Chorny. All three were beaten in the police vehicle and then taken to the Portofrankovsk Police Station without their arrival being recorded. The move came after the District Administrative Court earlier issued a ban restricting citizens' right to peaceful assembly until New Year. The court ruling places a blanket ban on all demonstrations, the use of tents, sound equipment and vehicles until the end of the year. On 26 November, a rally of 50 was held in Donetsk. On 28 November, a rally was held in Yalta; university faculty who attended were pressured to resign by university officials. On 29 November, Lviv protesters numbered some 20,000. Like in Kyiv, they locked hands in a human chain, symbolically linking Ukraine to the European Union (organisers claimed that some 100 people even crossed the Ukrainian-Polish border to extend the chain to the European Union).
On 1 December, the largest rally outside of Kyiv took place in Lviv by the statue of Taras Shevchenko, where over 50,000 protesters attended. Mayor Andriy Sadovy, council chairman Peter Kolody, and prominent public figures and politicians were in attendance. An estimated 300 rallied in the eastern city of Donetsk demanding that President Viktor Yanukovych and the government of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov resign. Meanwhile, in Kharkiv, thousands rallied with writer Serhiy Zhadan during a speech, calling for revolution. The protest was peaceful. Protesters claimed at least 4,000 attended, with other sources saying 2,000. In Dnipropetrovsk, 1,000 gathered to protest the EU agreement suspension, show solidarity with those in Kyiv, and demanded the resignation of local and metropolitan officials. They later marched, shouting "Ukraine is Europe" and "Revolution". EuroMaidan protests were also held in Simferopol (where 150–200 attended) and Odesa. On 2 December, in an act of solidarity, Lviv Oblast declared a general strike to mobilise support for protests in Kyiv, which was followed by the formal order of a general strike by the cities of Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk. In Dnipropetrovsk on 3 December, a group of 300 protested in favour of European integration and demanded the resignation of local authorities, heads of local police units, and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). On 7 December, it was reported that police were prohibiting those from Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk from driving to Kyiv. Protests on 8 December saw record turnout in many Ukrainian cities, including several in eastern Ukraine. in the evening, the fall of the monument to Lenin in Kyiv took place. On 9 December, a statue of Vladimir Lenin was destroyed in the town of Kotovsk in Odesa Oblast. In Ternopil, Euromaidan organisers were prosecuted by authorities. The removal or destruction of Lenin monuments and statues gained particular momentum after the destruction of the Kyiv Lenin statue. The statue removal process was soon termed “Leninopad” (Ukrainian: Ленінопад, Russian: Ленинопад), literally meaning 'Leninfall' in English. Soon, activists pulled down a dozen monuments in the Kyiv region, Zhytomyr, Chmelnitcki, and elsewhere, or damaged them during the course of the Euromaidan protests into spring of 2014. In other cities and towns, monuments were removed by organised heavy equipment and transported to scrapyards or dumps. On 14 December, Euromaidan supporters in Kharkiv voiced their disapproval of authorities fencing off Freedom Square from the public by covering the metal fence in placards. From 5 December, they became victims of theft and arson. A Euromaidan activist in Kharkiv was attacked by two men and stabbed twelve times. The assailants were unknown, but activists told the Kharkiv-based civic organisation Maidan that they believe the city's mayor, Gennady Kernes, to be behind the attack. On 22 December, 2,000 rallied in Dnipropetrovsk.
In late December, 500 marched in Donetsk. Due to the regime's hegemony in the city, foreign commentators have suggested that, "For 500 marchers to assemble in Donetsk is the equivalent of 50,000 in Lviv or 500,000 in Kyiv." On 5 January, marches in support of Euromaidan were held in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, and Kharkiv, the latter three drawing several hundred and Donetsk only 100. On 11 January 2014, 150 activists met in Kharkiv for a general forum on uniting the nationwide Euromaidan efforts. A church where some were meeting was stormed by over a dozen thugs, and others attacked meetings in a book store, smashing windows and deploying tear gas to stop the Maidan meetings from taking place.
On 22 January in Donetsk, two simultaneous rallies were held – one pro-Euromaidan and one pro-government. The pro-government rally attracted 600 attendees, compared to about 100 from the Euromaidan side. Police reports claimed 5,000 attended to support the government, compared to only 60 from Euromaidan. In addition, approximately 150 titushky appeared and encircled the Euromaidan protesters with megaphones and began a conflict, burning wreaths and Svoboda Party flags, shouting, "Down with fascists!", but were separated by police. Meanwhile, Donetsk City Council pleaded with the government to take tougher measures against Euromaidan protesters in Kyiv. Reports indicated a media blackout took place in Donetsk. In Lviv, on 22 January, amid the police shootings of protesters in the capital, military barracks were surrounded by protesters. Many of the protesters included mothers whose sons were serving in the military, who pleaded with them not to deploy to Kyiv. In Vinnytsia, on 22 January, thousands of protesters blocked the main street of the city and the traffic. Also, they brought "democracy in coffin" to the city hall, as a present to Yanukovych. On 23 January, Odesa City Council member and Euromaidan activist Oleksandr Ostapenko's car was bombed. The mayor of Sumy threw his support behind the Euromaidan movement on 24 January, laying blame for the civil disorder in Kyiv on the Party of Regions and Communists. The Crimean parliament repeatedly stated that because of the events in Kyiv it was ready to join autonomous Crimea to Russia. On 27 February, armed men seized the Crimean parliament and raised the Russian flag. 27 February was later declared a day of celebration for the Russian Spetsnaz special forces by Vladimir Putin by presidential decree. In the beginning of March, thousands of Crimean Tatars in support of Euromaidan clashed with a smaller group of pro-Russian protesters in Simferopol. On 4 March 2014, a mass pro-Euromaidan rally was held in Donetsk for the first time. About 2,000 people were there. Donetsk is a major city in the far east of Ukraine and served as Yanukovych's stronghold and the base of his supporters. On 5 March 2014, 7,000–10,000 people rallied in support of Euromaidan in the same place. After a leader declared the rally over, a fight broke out between pro-Euromaidan and 2,000 pro-Russian protesters.
Occupation of administrative buildings
Starting on 23 January, several Western Ukrainian oblast (province) government buildings and Regional State Administrations (RSAs) were occupied by Euromaidan activists. Several RSAs of the occupied oblasts then decided to ban the activities and symbols of the Communist Party of Ukraine and Party of Regions in their oblast. In the cities of Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa, protesters also tried to take over their local RSAs.
Protests outside Ukraine
Smaller protests or Euromaidans have been held internationally, primarily among the larger Ukrainian diaspora populations in North America and Europe. The largest took place on 8 December 2013 in New York, with over 1,000 attending. Notably, in December 2013, Warsaw's Palace of Culture and Science, Cira Centre in Philadelphia, the Tbilisi City Assembly in Georgia, and Niagara Falls on the US-Canada border were illuminated in blue and yellow as a symbol of solidarity with Ukraine.
Antimaidan and pro-government rallies
Pro-government rallies during Euromaidan were largely credited as funded by the government. Several news outlets investigated the claims to confirm that by and large, attendees at pro-government rallies did so for financial compensation and not for political reasons, and were not an organic response to the Euromaidan. "People stand at Euromaidan protesting against the violation of human rights in the state, and they are ready to make sacrifices," said Oleksiy Haran, a political scientist at Kyiv Mohyla Academy in Kyiv. "People at Antimaidan stand for money only. The government uses these hirelings to provoke resistance. They won't be sacrificing anything."
Euromaidan groups
Automaidan
Automaidan was a movement within Euromaidan that sought the resignation of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. It was made up mainly of drivers who would protect the protest camps and blockade streets. It organised a car procession on 29 December 2013 to the president's residence in Mezhyhirya to voice their protests at his refusal to sign the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement in December 2013. The motorcade was stopped a couple of hundred metres short of his residence. Automaidan was the repeated target of violent attacks by government forces and supporters.
Self-defence groups
On 30 November 2013, the day after the dispersion of the first major protests, Euromaidan activists, with the support of pro-Maidan political parties such as Svoboda, and aided by the Ukrainian politician and businessman Arsen Avakov, created a self-defence group entitled “Self-Defence of the Maidan" or “Maidan Self-Defence” – an independent police force that aimed to protect protesters from riot police and provide security within Kyiv. At the time, the head of the group was designated as Andriy Parubiy. “Self-Defence of the Maidan” adhered to a charter that “promoted the European choice and unity of Ukraine”, and were not officially allowed to mask themselves or carry weapons, although most men in the group did not adhere to such rules and groups of volunteers were mainly fractured under a centralised leadership. The group ran its headquarters from a former women's shoe store in central Kyiv, organising patrols, recruiting new members, and taking queries from the public. The makeshift headquarters was run by volunteers from across Ukraine. After the ousting of President Yanukovych, the group took on a much larger role, serving as the de facto police force in Kyiv in early 2014, as most police officers abandoned their posts for fears of reprisal. Aiming to prevent looting or arson from tainting the success of Euromaidan, government buildings were among the first buildings to be protected by the group, with institutions such as the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament of Ukraine) and the National Bank of Ukraine under 24-hour supervision during this time. “Self-defence” groups such as “Self-Defence of the Maidan” were divided up into sotnias (plural: sotni) or 'hundreds', which were described as a "force that is providing the tip of the spear in the violent showdown with government security forces". The sotni take their name from a traditional form of Cossacks cavalry formation, and were also used in the Ukrainian People's Army, Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and Ukrainian National Army. Along with “Self-Defence of the Maidan”, there were also some "independent" divisions of enforcers (some of them were also referred to as sotnias and even as “Self-Defence” groups), like the security of the Trade Unions Building until 2 January 2014, Narnia and Vikings from Kyiv City State Administration, Volodymr Parasyuk's sotnia from Conservatory building, although Andriy Parubiy officially asked such divisions to not term themselves as “Self-Defence” groups. Pravy Sektor coordinates its actions with Self-defence and is formally a 23rd sotnia, although already had hundreds of members at the time of registering as a sotnia. Second sotnia (staffed by Svoboda's members) tends to dissociate itself from "sotnias of self-defence of Maidan". Some Russian citizens sympathetic to the opposition joined the protest movement as part of the Misanthropic Division, many of them later becoming Ukrainian citizens.
Casualties
Altogether, more than 100 people were killed and 2,500 injured. The death toll included 108 protesters and 13 police officers. Most of the deaths and injuries were during the Revolution of Dignity in February 2014. In November 2015, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court released a legal analysis of the Maidan protests, concluding that: "violence against protesters, including the excessive use of force causing death and serious injury as well as other forms of ill-treatment, was actively promoted or encouraged by the Ukrainian authorities" under Yanukovych. By June 2016, 55 people had been charged in relation to the deaths of Maidan protesters, including 29 former members of the Berkut special police, ten titushky and ten senior government officials.