[Interview] 2014: Ukraine: ‘He advised me he cherished me then mentioned goodbye’

His name got here on the morning of 20 February 2014 and snipers had simply opened hearth on protesters within the Maidan sq. in central Kiev, within the ultimate act of a revolution which led, sooner or later later, to the autumn of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, shattering the post-Soviet order in Europe.

Matviychuk, a then 31-year previous lawyer and rights activist, spoke together with her husband from the workplace of Euromaidan SOS, an initiative she had created to offer authorized assist to victims.

By February 2014, they have been so busy she was sleeping simply two-to-three hours a day.

And Kiev was so harmful she was dwelling in hiding, after regime thugs tried to raid her flat.

Her husband was not harm ultimately.

But dozens of different individuals have been gunned down in chilly blood, surrounded by EU flags – the image of the opposition motion – on the rebellion’s most dangerous single day.

“I’m lucky, because many others never saw their loved ones again,” Matviychuk mentioned.

“The shooting went on for hours and we received thousands of calls for help. Our volunteers rushed to the morgues, to Hotel Ukrayina, to hospitals, and other places where the bodies were being taken, to photograph them and their IDs,” she recalled.

“Being a lawyer in such a situation, you feel absurd, but we had to document the truth,” she mentioned.

‘Likes do not rely’

The ‘Revolution of Dignity’ had begun three months earlier, at about 8PM on 21 November 2013, with a Facebook publish by Ukrainian journalist Mustafa Nayyem.

“Let’s get serious … Who’s ready to come to Maidan before midnight? ‘Likes’ don’t count”, Nayyem wrote, after Yanukovych, earlier the identical day, had halted preparations to signal an EU accord and opted to remain, as an alternative, in what Matviychuk referred to as “the Russian world”.

Matviychuk and about 1,000 others heeded Nayyem’s name.

“Everyone was smiling that night, even though it was freezing … but, inside, I was concentrated, because I knew 1,000 people were not enough to stop the ruin of our country,” Matviychuk mentioned.

As days and weeks glided by, to her “huge surprise”, the crowds saved rising, at factors numbering over 500,000, regardless of rising police brutality, together with the primary deadly shootings of protesters – Serhiy Nigoyan, Roman Senyk, and Mikhail Zhyznewski – on 22 January 2014.

Some have been additionally fortunately stunned when high EU and US diplomats visited the Maidan.

But for Matviychuk, what counted was “support from ordinary people, not just the political elite”.

“When violence broke out on 11 December, we were scared because our relatives were on the Maidan and we didn’t know what would come next,” she mentioned.

“It was deep into the night, but, suddenly, our Facebook page was flooded with messages: ‘Spain is with you. Italy is with you. France is with you …”, she mentioned.

“These gestures were so important, because we knew we weren’t the only ones who weren’t sleeping, that we were not alone”, she mentioned.

Nayyem’s Facebook publish has gone down in historical past, however for Matviychuk, the revolt had deeper roots – and its first casualties have been ladies.

When 29-year previous Iryna Krashkova was raped and overwhelmed half-to-death by two policemen within the village of Vradiivka in June 2013, considered one of whom went free due to family members in excessive locations, it prompted protests in opposition to regime lawlessness from Lviv in western Ukraine to Donetsk within the east.

And when 18-year previous Oksana Makar was raped and murdered in March 2012 in Mykolaiv, on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, by three males, two of whom went free, it additionally sparked a wave of disgust on social media and road protests in opposition to Yanukovych’s “world”.

Suspects freed

Fast ahead to 2020, and two new presidents later – Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky – and, for Matviychuk, the battle for “dignity” goes on.

Her NGO – the Centre for Civil Liberties – continues to be battling within the courts for justice for the 83 protesters killed on the Maidan.

They are additionally searching for justice for the 18 policemen who died. “These men were also tools used by the regime”, Matviychuk mentioned.

“Nobody believes they [the Maidan snipers] were Georgian or Italian mercenaries, or any other Russian propaganda stories, but what we need are court verdicts, not popular knowledge,” Matviychuk mentioned.

Her wrestle was made more durable when Zelensky, final yr, let 5 key suspects – officers from Ukraine’s ‘Berkut’ particular police – flee to Russia in change for Ukrainian troopers and civilians, whom Russia took hostage within the warfare in east Ukraine.

And her battle is being obstructed by Yanukovych-era officers, who by no means left their posts, and a few of whom have crimes to cover.

“It’s not just about top officials who ordered attacks, or Berkut officers who killed people – you must consider the whole chain-of-command, the responsibility of the middle ranks, and these people are not so interested in our investigations,” Matviychuk mentioned.

“We still have to build the institutions our country needs, and we have to protect Ukraine from Russian aggression, so there’s a lot of work.”