KYIV — Ukrainians are marking Heavenly Hundred’s Day on the sixth anniversary of a deadly crackdown against the Euromaidan protests that toppled Ukraine’s pro-Russian former president, Viktor Yanukovych.
The commemorations honor those who were killed in Kyiv during clashes with Yanukovych’s security forces on February 20, 2014.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his wife, Olena, were among Ukrainians who laid flowers at the Monument to the Heavenly Hundred in Kyiv’s Independence Square — Maidan Nezalezhnosti — on February 20.
The Euromaidan movement began in November 2013 when protesters gathered at the central square in Kyiv to protest Yanukovych’s decision not to sign a crucial trade accord with the European Union and, instead, seek closer economic ties with Russia.
Ukrainian prosecutors say 104 people were killed and 2,500 injured as a result of violent crackdowns by authorities against protesters from February 18-20, 2014.
Shunning a deal backed by the West and Russia to end the standoff, Yanukovych abandoned power and fled Kyiv on February 21, 2014.
