As activists gathered on an icy Kyiv square this weekend to commemorate the authorities’ bloody response to the wave of protests three years ago that eventually swept the then president from power, the mood was sombre.

The country’s 2013-14 Maidan revolution was sparked by Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal, under pressure from Moscow, to sign a groundbreaking integration agreement with the EU. When dozens of demonstrators were mown down by snipers in February 2014, some held EU flags.