For two months, protesters have continued to mark the streets of the Ukraine. The protests have remained peaceful for the past eight weeks, but quickly turned fiery and violent on Sunday night and into Monday morning.
Why did the protests even start? After years and years of negotiating with the European Union, or the EU, Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovich, announced he would not go through with the treaty on Nov. 21. Thousands of people quickly grouped together in Kiev, hoping to influence Yanukovich to re-think his decision. Despite their effort, he refused.
This did not stop protesters, but actually ended up increasing the number of people out on the streets of Independence Square. Police continually had to intervene in many of the protests, which ended in injuries of people as young as college students and even suspending Kiev’s mayor, Leonid Chernovetsky. However, on Dec. 17 the Ukraine made a deal with Russia, which claimed that Russia would buy $15 billion of Ukraine’s government bonds and cut Russian gas prices. At this time, the deal was a huge benefit to the country because of their struggle with debt. It also seemed to decrease the number of protests by a lot.
Unfortunately, numbers grew again when new laws were approved to eliminate protests. The government increased fines and jail time for protesters that weren’t being peaceful. The laws also made it illegal for protesters to wear helmets or masks and limited free speech. This immediately angered Ukrainians, which fueled the fire to even more protests than before.
Sunday’s protest was the worst out of them all. Catapults of rocks were hurled, as well as the use of tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun grenades. Even fire was sprayed at police by a few protesters. Luckily, the United States plans to do everything in their power in order to get rid of all the violence in the Ukraine. Many have called the new laws “undemocratic” and are disgusted with the way the Ukrainian government has reacted to once peaceful protests.
The president unfortunately still has a lot of fans in many other parts of the country. But, the EU has claimed that they are still open to sign a treaty with the Ukraine. If Yanukovich still refuses, hopefully we will see some form of action as soon as possible. Protesters do not deserve to have their rights taken away, and the number of injuries and killings needs to stop increasing.