There is no more important date in the modern history of Ukraine than February 20, 2014. On that day on the streets of Kyiv, 48 Maidan activists and 4 police officers were killed. Shortly after, then-president Viktor Yanukovych fled the country, the annexation of Crimea started, and after that the war in Donbass. If we make a generalization, it was the day that predestined the loss of 7% of Ukranian territory and many thousand of lives for Ukraine.

Nobody could know any of this in the early morning of February 20. After heavy fighting for two days with the police, which resulted in 31 activists and 8 law enforcement officers dead, the protesters were left with much less ground. Police were now holding positions on Maidan itself. There was no doubt that the next attack would put an end to the uprising, and then in future textbooks they would call it nothing more than ‘mass riots’.

“His focused tactical actions made the law enforcement flee and prevented the peril of the Revolution of Dignity” — Ukrainian Wikipedia is vague about the role of Ivan Bubenchyk in history. He gave the first detailed account of his actions on that day in the movie Captives by Volodymyr Tykhyy. The documentary has already premiered and will be in Ukrainian theaters on February 25. Just before the premiere, Ivan Siyak met with Ivan Bubenchyk on Maidan to hear his account of the events.