A Decade Of Struggle How Protest Proved Pivotal For Ukraine

Ten years ago Oleksandr Plekhanov took part in protests against Ukraine's corrupt then-president, Viktor Yanukovych. He was one of tens of thousands of demonstrators who had gathered in the Maidan, Kyiv's central independence square. The pro-European movement began after Yanukovych dumped an association agreement with the EU and accepted a bailout from Russia.

- Luke Harding

Plekhanov believed Ukraine was at a crossroads. History was being made. The choices were stark: a return to the USSR, with Moscow calling the shots, or a democratic future where the country decided its own destiny and integrated with the west. Aged 22, and a student, Plekhanov chose Europe. "My son didn't know the Soviet Union. He believed he had rights and that he could shape his own life," his mother, Inna, explained.

The protests began in November 2013. Initially they were peaceful.

For three months there was a standoff. Then Yanukovych, under pressure from Vladimir Putin, sent in thugs and baton-wielding riot police. Crowds chucked stones; smoke and explosions filled the air. Plekhanov was standing at the bottom of Instytutska Street, next to a makeshift barricade. At 6pm, on 18 February 2014, he called his mother to say he was OK.

Soon afterwards, a sniper shot him in the head. The riot police known as Berkut - were perched on the roof of the neoclassical October Palace, once a girls' seminary. From there, they gunned down unarmed protesters massing on the slope below. Plekhanov was one of 103 protesters killed in what Ukrainians call the Revolution of Dignity. Putin responded by blaming the CIA for a "coup". He annexed Crimea.