For many Ukrainians, it has been a ten-year war, not two

It was a ragtag army that fought with baseball bats, Molotov cocktails and plywood shields. But for Ukrainians, the protesters who confronted riot police in Kiev’s central square a decade ago were the first soldiers in a war that still rages.

The demonstrators were part of the 2014 Maidan uprising, when Ukrainians took to the streets to protest President Viktor F. Yanukovych’s decision to cut closer ties with Europe and instead align Ukraine more closely with Moscow. During the violent final days of the uprising, police killed more than a hundred demonstrators.

Their portraits now adorn a wall of honor in St. Michael’s Monastery with the Golden Dome in Kiev. They are shown first, before the portraits of soldiers killed in the simmering eight-year conflict in eastern Ukraine, which served as a prelude to Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. And a museum dedicated to the street uprising identifies these people. who died on the square as the first soldiers to die in the war with Russia.

This connection that Ukrainians make between the 2014 uprising and the invasion two years ago reflects the long view of war that many citizens hold: they have been fighting Russia for a decade, not two.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine took place in two phases, the Ukrainians emphasize. The first was a decade ago when Russian soldiers crossed the border shortly after Mr Yanukovych was driven into exile, igniting the war in the east. It was a military intervention unrecognized by Moscow, shrouded in a fog of guile and denials so improbable that few were misled. But it has nevertheless weakened both the Ukrainian and international response.

The war two years ago revolved around an overt attempt by Russia to seize military territory and redraw Europe’s borders. This week, as the world marks the second anniversary of the Russian invasion, Ukrainians are remembering the anger and determination that also drove the 2014 uprising.

“We have always fought against Russia,” said Captain Oleh Voitsekhovsky, who joined the army immediately after protesting on Maidan Square, fighting in the war in the east and still fighting. According to him, his view of Ukrainian history is that of an ongoing struggle against Moscow. “Sometimes it’s cold and sometimes it’s hot.”

In its final days, the 2014 uprising nearly collapsed when demonstrators took control of just a few hundred square meters of soot-covered paving stones and resorted to burning piles of tires to light a giant bonfire that riot police stopped.

Police snipers fired into the crowd, leaving bodies scattered on the sidewalk in central Kiev. The protest ended when security chiefs and protest leaders struck a deal, and when police withdrew and left the capital. This betrayal left Mr. Yanukovych without protection and fled to eastern Ukraine and then to Russia on February 24, 2014.

In a video address to the nation on Tuesday marking the 10th anniversary of the sniper shootings, President Volodymyr Zelensky drew a line from the Maidan uprising to today’s trench warfare. The Ukrainians will fight, he said, “on the squares, on the barricades and today at the front.”

After ousting Mr Yanukovych, many protesters thought they had secured Ukraine’s freedom. In fact, the war had only just begun.

The Russian response to Maidan became a simple but effective ploy: it deployed soldiers in uniforms without insignia to the Crimean peninsula and identified them as angry locals or members of motorcycle gangs. The ruse was transparent, but succeeded in delaying the Western response amid debate over the origins of the apparent mystery soldiers.

Ukraine, still shaky under an interim president appointed by parliament, initially tried to avoid war.

Captain Yuriy Fedash of the Ukrainian Navy tried to repel Russian attempts to board and seize his ship in March 2014, when he received an order from Kiev that symbolized Ukraine’s cautious, initial response : “Don’t give up, but don’t shoot. ,’” Captain Fedash said he was told that.

Seeing no way to resist without fighting, Captain Fedash disobeyed, he said in an interview: He ordered sailors to fire warning shots from a heavy machine gun, causing seawater to come up. They were among the first shots fired by the Ukrainian army in the war, but could not prevent the ship’s eventual seizure.

By the time Russian tanks crossed the border two years ago, about 400,000 Ukrainians had already fought the Russians in eastern Ukraine. By sustaining years of low-intensity war in the east, Russia had, paradoxically, prepared the Ukrainian army to repel a nationwide attack. Many veterans, battle-hardened after years in the trenches, rejoined the army.

“This was decisive,” said Captain Voitsekhovsky, referring to the way veterans of the war in the east took up arms against the large-scale Russian invasion. “First of all, we were motivated. This was a big, unpleasant surprise for the Russians. And we had combat experience. Nothing needed to be explained. We took weapons with us and didn’t need any help.”

The Maidan Uprising also reverberated in Russian war plans.

During the invasion, Russia attempted to quickly capture the capital with columns of tanks, paratroopers and commandos, with the aim of setting up a puppet government. One plan identified by Ukrainian officials would have reinstalled Mr. Yanukovych.

In the weeks before the invasion, lawyers who later fled to Russia filed low-profile lawsuits in a Kiev court challenging a 2014 parliamentary vote that stripped Yanukovych of his presidential powers.

The legal files are said to have laid the foundation for his return. Agents of Ukraine’s domestic intelligence service, the SBU, have seized the court’s computer servers to prevent corrupt or treacherous judges from publishing a ruling legitimizing Mr Yanukovych’s return.

Russia’s denial of any direct military role in Ukraine in 2014 has infuriated Ukrainians over the years and reinforced their view of a long war against Russia.

France and Germany had conceded in settlement talks to a role for Russian proxy forces in the negotiations, known as the Minsk II process. It was essentially a partial acceptance of Russia’s denial that it had invaded two eastern provinces in 2014; that acceptance delayed for years a full-blown struggle with the implications of Russia’s turn to military expansionism.

“I wanted someone to pay attention to this lawlessness,” Captain Fedash, the Navy skipper, said of the unrecognized Russian intervention. “We let time pass. They weren’t punished, so they continued.”

Ukraine is now on the defensive along its entire 600-mile front, fighting with dwindling ammunition and facing deep uncertainty about the future of military and financial aid from its key ally, the United States. The Ukrainians have fought against great odds before.

Sviatoslav Syry, who was beaten by riot police officers in the square as a student protester, was elected to a seat in parliament and now fights in an artillery unit in the Ukrainian army.

Protesters in Maidan, he told Ukrainian media, were dismayed when riot police repeatedly stormed the square’s tent camp in nighttime raids. “By morning you think it might all be over,” he said. “But inside there is already anger and desire to come back.”

Maria Varenikova contributed reporting from Kiev, Ukraine.