In November 2013, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian protesters took
over Kiev’s Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) and a
number of important government buildings.
Initially, the demonstrators gathered to protest against President Viktor
Yanukovych’s decision to pull out of a deal that would have brought
Ukraine to the threshold of the European Union.
After a brutal police crackdown, protests grew in size and passion and
their focus shifted to the larger issue of toppling a government seen as
brutal and corrupt.
Police tried several times in vain to clear the tent city that sprang up in
the capital’s Independence Square.
My photo reportage covers a period of time from 16 February, 2014,
when the demonstrations became more violent, to early March 2014
and the beginning of the Crimean crisis.
During this period I was able to capture clashes between the
demonstrators and the forces of order that recall, in the manner both
of attack and defence, a type of conflict reminiscent of the medieval
Dark Ages.
Everything was wrapped in a persistent blanket of smoke rising from
tyres being burned to prevent the advance of the Ukrainian president's
feared Berkut special forces in their tortoise-formations.
It was truly a territorial war as both sides fought to gain, or regain,
mere inches of ground around the government buildings .
I witnessed the destruction of the barricades by the police, and their
subsequent rebuilding, even higher and stronger than before, by the
demonstrators. Tons of debris piled up hour after hour in the streets
only to be promptly gathered and piled on the barricades by the
thousands of protesters, who swarmed and rallied like ants defending
their nest.
