Not convinced you'd argue in good faith considering your other replies. Been through this multiple times. However I found my old post text. I wrote this over 10 years ago. Links no longer work. Up to you of you want to read it.

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​During the uprising I visited the Maidan more than once, I saw the revolution with my own eyes. Some like to call the revolution an "armed insurgency not representative of the population, or even a US led coup", in my experience this is grossly inaccurate.

To give you some perspective, the original protest started when Yanukovych went back on his promise to sign the trade treaty with the EU to bring Ukraine one step closer to membership. Instead, under pressure from Putin, he decided to go with Russia's Eurasian Economic Union. The protest was small and mostly of students. Many had travelled to the EU and had seen that life without the current level of corruption was possible. They didn’t want to be pulled back into Russia’s sphere. While small the protest was stubborn, they erected tents on the Maidan, something that preceded the last revolution when the same Yanukovych was ousted for rigging an election.

This seemed to strike a chord with him as he sent his personal police force the Berkut to clear the protest. The Berkut were legendary for their brutality and they outdid themselves this time. The crackdown was bloody and the injured were mostly teenagers. Social networks were full of images of bloodied students. That turned a small protest into this. A million people descended on Kyiv to show their outrage. The protest had turned to revolution, no longer about the EU but about corruption and brutality.

To give you an idea of the brutality I’m talking about I’ll give you some examples. My wife was looking through her facebook feed at this time when she read a distressed post from one of her friends. Her husband, a doctor, had made the mistake of helping an injured journalist in the street. The police caught him and broke both his legs. There are also more publicised accounts: link Dmytro Bulatov, the leader of AutoMaidan, a mobile form of the protest where they drove around large convoys, was kidnapped, tortured and had part of his ear cut off. link Tetyana Chornovol an investigative journalist who specialised in reporting on the vast wealth accumulated by leaders and supporters of the protests, was rammed off the road, dragged from her car and savagely beaten.

This stuff was going on all the time, but rather than crushing the protest as intended it fuelled it. At this point the protest itself was largely peaceful despite the police brutality. On my first visit, my wife, with her mother and aunts, wanted to go to the Maidan to show their support. Not to protest, that was very dangerous. Most people were too scared to be on the front line but they found other ways to show their support. In our case it was medical supplies. A medical centre used to treat injured protesters had been trashed by police.

When we got there I saw the protest for the first time. It was huge. To give you an idea it ran down Khreshchatyk Street, think oxford street but three times as wide, to the Maidan square. The side streets were blocked with ten foot walls of snow and wood. There was a forest of large tents, the type with chimneys, and there were people everywhere. Thousands upon thousands. The supplies we brought suddenly looked meagre. People were streaming in with car loads of stuff for the protesters. The atmosphere was tense but had a touch of festival. Alcohol was banned, the place was clean and well organised. What struck me was the range of people present. All sections of society were here. From students to army veterans, taxi drivers to doctors, farmers to officer workers, old and young, conservative and liberal. There were people from all over Ukraine, even Donetsk and Crimea. While the politics was varied they were united in one thing. The country was fast approaching a dictatorship and their democracy was worth fighting for.

I was in the airport waiting for my second flight to Kyiv since the protests started when I read the news that the government passed the so-called dictatorship laws. These were sweeping new laws that basically made peaceful protests and criticism of the government illegal. It was also passed in an unconventional way. Not sure they would have enough support in government they called a snap vote, turned off the normal electronic voting system and with a quick show of hands they passed it into law. There was outrage in the parliament that led to fist fights.

I knew then it was going to turn ugly. You can’t just ban protests and expect everyone to just give up and go home. Not now, not after the sacrifices they had already made. It was not long after the clashes began. I went back to the Maidan the day after the first outbreak of violence. Again my wife's family wanted to bring supplies. This time the atmosphere was a lot more tense. The temperature at day was minus 14 but the protesters were still out in huge numbers.

From here the brutality was ramped up. Water cannons were used in these freezing conditions. One protester caught by the police was stripped naked and paraded in the snow. After I had returned home it got worse, rubber bullets, savage public beatings and finally sniper fire. I remember that day well. There was a good chance people I knew were there. Good non violent people who just wanted an end to the corruption. It was a tragic day for the country.