BY MARCI SHORE
On Dec. 1, 2013, at least half a million people gathered on the Maidan, the large public square in the center of Kiev. They came to express their outrage at Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who the day before had sent Berkut, his riot police, to bludgeon the students protesting his sudden refusal to sign an association agreement with the European Union. For these young people, Yanukovych’s decision foreclosed the European future they had imagined for themselves. For the hundreds of thousands who joined them on the streets after they were beaten, Yanukovych’s violence against Ukrainian citizens broke an implicit social contract.
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