Remembering a Winter on Fire

[Valin]

World Affairs:

Hannah Thoburn

14 October 2015

 

 

Before the winter of 2013-2014, Ukraine had spent its 22 years of independence peacefully. Where Russia had seen wars with separatist regions (Chechnya, 1994-1996 and 2000-2005), witnessed its president turn tank barrels on the parliament (October 1993), and had seen opposition-leaning Russians jailed and beaten by riot police for peaceful demonstrations (Winter 2012-2013), Ukraine had remained quiet. Certainly, the country had its share of political assassinations in the 1990s, but even 2004’s Orange Revolution was concluded peacefully and without violence against the protestors in the street or the politicians involved.

 

So the decision by then-President Viktor Yanukovych to use force on the thousands of Ukrainian citizens peacefully protesting his choice to forego signing an association agreement with the European Union came as a great shock to the body politic. Netflix’s newest documentary, Winter on Fire, tells the story of what happened next, as Ukrainians were killed, kidnapped and beaten by their government for daring to believe in the possibility of a new, uncorrupt, and European Ukraine.

 

Condensing the emotionally and politically charged events of a three-month long protest into the space of 98 minutes is a daunting task, but one that Russian-American director Evgeny Afineevsky has accomplished beautifully. He allows several of the main actors of what became known as the EuroMaidan movement, and some of its ordinary participants and activists, to narrate the events as they occurred, only intervening to set and close the story.

 

The footage is raw and often graphic.......................................(Snip)

 

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