A new and dark chapter
Eastern approaches 2014-01-22
Summary:
THE news of the first deaths among Ukraine’s protesters has opened a new and dark chapter in the story of the anti-government movement known as Euromaidan.
For three days, the situation on Kiev’s Hrushevsky Street had smacked of a kind of collective madness. During the fiercest clashes on the night of January 19th, leaderless protesters fought riot police with batons and shields made out of stolen pieces of the adjacent Dynamo stadium. A row of police buses was torched in the process.
The buses formed a barrier behind which the protesters then dug in, throwing Molotov cocktails and paving stones at riot police on the other side. The police fired the same things back, plus tear gas canisters, sound grenades and rubber bullets. It now looks as though they are no longer firing only rubber bullets.
Most of the noise though, for those three days, came from supporters of the young fighters, banging on bins, fences, and the coal braziers they swiftly brought to the area in order to keep warm. It was hard to identify any clear goal other than mayhem.
During the day on January 21st the noise was supplemented by...Continue reading