Ten years ago Oleksandr Plekhanov took part in protests against Ukraine’s corrupt then president, Viktor Yanukovych. He was one of tens of thousands of demonstrators who had gathered in the Maidan, Kyiv’s central independence square. The pro-European movement began after Yanukovych dumped an association agreement with the EU and accepted a bailout from Russia.
Plekhanov believed Ukraine was at a crossroads. History was being made. The choices were stark: a return to the USSR, with Moscow calling the shots, or a democratic future where the country decided its own destiny and integrated with the west. Aged 22, and a student, Plekhanov chose Europe. His mother, Inna, said: “My son didn’t know the Soviet Union. He believed he had rights and that he could shape his own life.”
