It’s been three years since protesters gathered on the streets of Kiev to demand an end to a government they believed was no longer fit for purpose.

The demonstration triggered a chain of events that led to Russia annexing Crimea and war in eastern Ukraine. Thousands have been killed and 1.5 million people displaced.

But as Russia’s foreign policy interests shift to Syria and the Baltics, we have asked young Ukrainians how the past three years have been for them, and what they think the future holds.



‘When Euromaidan started, I knew I had been ready for it all my life’

When Euromaidan started, I knew I had been ready for it all my life. Finally, a solution to Ukraine’s rotting post-totalitarian kleptocracy. More than 1 million of us gathered in Kiev’s central square and together we felt strong enough to make Ukraine a country where people would choose to live.



I joined the protests and spent day and night in the headquarters of the resistance, where it felt like the future of Ukraine depended on whether our wooden shields would withstand the attacks of the government riot police.

I translated news into English from the barricades and helped coordinate media efforts. Occasionally I would go home and sleep.

I opened my own website, Euromaidan Press, to tell the story of what was happening. I wanted to provide an alternative narrative for the English-speaking world, one different from the Russian press who branded us the “Nazi junta” and called us “dangerous nationalists” and “radicals”.

But three years on, I am left feeling that Ukraine is treated as no more than a diplomatic pawn – a country that has always been bullied, by both former Soviet occupiers and modern global powers.

The western media also treats Ukraine as an object, the “thing” that made relations with Russia go sour. But there are other stories to be told, like our citizens still having their rights oppressed and the daily information war we continue to fight with Russia.

Alya Shandra, 32, Kiev

‘I refuse to hate the people who want to separate from us’

I am originally from Starobelsk in eastern Ukraine. My mother is a native Russian who doesn’t speak Ukrainian and has never been to a Ukrainian-speaking city.



My father is a traditional Ukrainian and has vowed to be first in line to volunteer if an army if the pro-Russian rebels comes to town.

My town was Russian speaking and I grew up feeling that Russia and Ukraine were two countries with a common history, fairytales and culture. But after the war I am no longer able to understand the situation as clearly.

There is so much propaganda trying to pit one side against the other, but I refuse to hate the people who want to separate from the rest of the country.

As I’m from the Luhansk region, I understand it’s not that they think Ukraine is bad, it’s just that they believed their lives would be better in Russia.

Dasha Prokaza, 21, Lviv



‘People think one day we will be brothers and sisters again – we won’t’



The most frequently misunderstood thing about Ukraine’s relationship with Russia is that one day we will be brothers and sisters again.



My city of Odessa witnessed a big tragedy on 2 May 2014 when pro-Russians attacked a pro-Ukraine march. I was on my way to a football match but I stopped by to see what going on. I had a camera and, as I was running between the two camps, bullets, stones and molotov cocktails started to fly.

On the corner of the main street in Odessa, Deribasovskaya, someone called me by name and I took a few steps towards him. Moments later a man was killed on the spot where I had been standing. By the end of the day, the death toll had exceeded 40.

More than two years have passed and the official investigation cannot determine who was responsible for sparking the violence, or why the authorities did nothing to stop it spreading. Journalists have tried to make sense of what happened, as have independent experts, but we still don’t have official closure.



History shows us that it is difficult for people recover from conflicts if there have been a large number of victims, especially if those responsible have not been held to account. But without this, how can we be friends?

Iryna Kyporenko, 27, Odessa

‘Obama and Stalin are seen as dictators who killed millions’

“Obama and Stalin are identical … both bloody dictators who killed millions of people” and “Hillary Clinton is a heavy user of drugs”. These are two commonly held beliefs among Ukrainians who rely on pro-Russia sites for their news.

When I was a student we learned about the propaganda of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, but such propaganda is now an everyday reality in Ukraine.

My father, a native Ukrainian, has recently retired from the Russian merchant navy after 32 years. He used to listen to western rock music and travel the world. Now he believes Joseph Stalin and Ivan the Terrible were great leaders who should have monuments erected in their honour.

When I suggested Stalin was responsible for millions of deaths, he claimed that Obama was a “bloody dictator too.”

Ukraine has banned Russian state TV on the basis of the disinformation and propaganda it promotes – a move Russia called a violation against freedom of speech – but everything is available online anyway.

My friend has just returned from the conflict in Donbass where he says no one watchesUkrainian channels, only stuff from Russia and the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic.

For some, it feels likes Russian TV is creating a fantasy narrative to destroy Ukraine. But for others it’s a version of events they have come to believe. As Russian journalists often say, every situation can be seen as truth from one point of view, and a lie from the other.

Natalia Steblyna, 33, Odessa

‘This conflict has destroyed many families – including mine’

In Soviet times it was popular to move from one Republic to another so my mother’s uncles and aunts left Ukraine to study in Russia, where they have lived for the past 30 years. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has destroyed many families, including mine.



Alla Sadovnyk’s family. Without personal connections, mending ties with Russia will not be easy. Photograph: Alla Sadovnyk

Before war they came to visit every year. They loved our country. Not now. We stopped talking to them in 2014, after a few Skype conversations where they would say things like “only Putin can save you from Americans”. We disagreed about Crimea and they came to regard us, their relatives, as the enemy.

My family’s story is not unique, and I know that one day we will have to forgive each other – because without these personal connections, any cooperation with Russia will be very difficult.

Alla Sadovnyk, 26, Rivne

‘The Crimea we know is being destroyed’

A family, a table, three cups of coffee, three chairs, but one is empty. The third family member, a son or a daughter, has disappeared. The parents’ eyes are full of pain.

This scene in Crimea was replicated outside the Russian embassy in Kiev last month to draw attention to the plight of families living on the Crimean peninsula.



Such a fate befell the family of Ervin Ibrahimow, who was kidnapped in the city of Simferopol five months ago and hasn’t been heard from since. Then there are the dozens of people who have been imprisoned for political reasons since March 2013, leaving their family and friends scared about what might happen to them.

Protesters outside the Russian embassy in Kiev. Photograph: Oleksandra Ochman

Meanwhile, the authorities have been accused of persecuting the indigenous community of Crimean Tatars and making pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine residents fear one another.

Against this backdrop, most discussions in Ukraine seem almost ridiculous. Is Crimea historically ours or theirs? Did the 2014 referendum represent what people truly thought?

As we get bogged down in debating history, the Crimea we know is being destroyed. Soon we will no longer be able to recognise our home – our lovely Black Sea resort that 20,000 people have fled.

Crimea is not a pawn in a political game. It’s not just a piece of territory, it’s home and is key to the fate of more than 2 million people. Some receive a higher Russian pension now, and some love Russian culture, and that’s OK. But we need international support to protect those who don’t.

Oleksandra Ochman, 25, Kiev