Russian War In Ukraine

The EU freezes attempts to revive a political and trade pact with Ukraine. 200,000 people rally in Kyiv.

President Yanukovych holds roundtable discussions with opposition leaders, but no breakthrough in the crisis is reached.

Hundreds of thousands of people rally in Kyiv, in the largest protest yet. A statue of Lenin is toppled in the city centre.

President Yanukovych meets Russian President Vladimir Putin for talks in Sochi, to lay the ground for a new “strategic partnership” between the two countries.

An estimated 300,000 people protest in Kyiv and besiege the president’s office. Dozens are injured as police respond with tear gas, batons and flash grenades.

Thousands of Ukrainians stage fresh protests in Kyiv’s Independence Square. 2,000 riot police are deployed around the square, but only small scuffles are reported.

At an EU summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, President Yanukovych refuses to sign the association agreement.

Ukrainian police fire tear gas at demonstrators, saying they had been pelted with objects. Yulia Tymoshenko, in prison, begins a hunger strike in solidarity with the protestors.

An estimated 100,000 people rally in Kyiv against the government. Meanwhile, a pro-government rally attracts 10,000 people.

Jailed Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko urges Ukrainians to protest against the government’s decision not to sign a trade deal with the EU.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych orders the suspension of trade and association talks with the European Union, opting to revive economic ties with Russia.

Anti-government protests begin in Kyiv’s Independence Square (Maidan) and contiunes till February 2014.

Ukraine's president, Viktor Yanukovich, issued a significant rebuff to Europe on Thursday when his supporters in the parliament discarded legislation that aimed to partly integrate the country with the EU.

Just a week prior to an EU summit in Lithuania, set to be overshadowed by the ongoing Brussels-Moscow struggle for influence over Ukraine's future, the Kiev parliament did not pass any of the six new laws deemed critical for a successful outcome in Vilnius the following Friday.

These bills, if passed, would have paved the way for Yanukovich's chief political adversary, Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister jailed in 2011 for seven years, to travel to Germany for medical treatment.

The Customs Service of the Russian Federation put all Ukrainian imports on the list of potentially dangerous goods on August 14, which halted the shipment of goods from Ukraine for an indefinite time, the press service of the Federation of Employers of Ukraine (FEU) has reported.

“On midnight on August 14, all Ukrainian importers without exception were added to the first forty enterprises which were entered into to the risk profile of the risk management system of the Federal Customs Service this July. At the same time, the steps to prevent risk were tightened further. As a matter of fact, this means a full halt of Ukrainian exports indefinitely, for weeks or even months,” the report Ukraine’s Employers Federation says.

Initial Causes

The European Union and Ukraine initiated an Association Agreement. However, the EU leaders later stated that the agreement would not be ratified unless Ukraine addressed concerns over a "stark deterioration of democracy and the rule of law," including the imprisonment of Yulia Tymoshenko and Yuriy Lutsenko in 2011 and 2012.

In the period before the protests, Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych encouraged the legislative body to enact legislation aligning with the European Union's standards. 

On September 25, 2013, Volodymyr Rybak, the head of Ukraine's parliament, expressed confidence in passing all necessary laws to comply with the EU criteria for the Association Agreement. He noted that all political groups in the parliament, except the Communist Party of Ukraine, had agreed on these measures: "The Verkhovna Rada has united around these bills."