'Winter on Fire' tracks the 93 days Ukraine fought for its identity

The Los Angeles Time ^ | October 9, 2015 | Jeffrey Fleishman

[JPX2011]

Streets are scattered with stones and shell casings. Winter fog mixes with the last wisps of tear gas. The wounded and the dead have been carried away, and those who are left hunker at the barricades. Police advance. Snipers take to rooftops. Bodies fall and the Ukrainian revolution, as brutal as it is cinematic, enters a new day in the battered capital of Kiev.

Evgeny Afineevsky's "Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom" is a documentary from the front lines, a visceral portrait of a nation's battle for its identity. The film tracks the 93 days — between November 2013 and February 2014 — when tens of thousands of protesters rallied in frigid Independence Square against gunfire, arrests and beatings to bring down President Viktor Yanukovych and upset a dangerous regional order.

With the immediacy of a news bulletin and the intimacy of a novel, "Winter on Fire," which opens theatrically and on Netflix on Oct. 9, lacks important historical nuance even as it traces protesters struggling to free their country from Russian manipulation more than two decades after the fall of the Soviet Union. Public outrage erupted when Yanukovych, who would eventually flee the capital in darkness, edged closer to Russian President Vladimir Putin and backed away from a popular plan to strengthen ties with the European Union.

[1rudeboy]

Now, now . . . don’t you know that John McCain orchestrated it all? And Soros.

[Balding_Eagle]

I Am a Ukrainian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvds2AIiWLA&index=2&list=PL0HrVZq162tjKOdGm8G10Gt5UUQGW9iV9

Published on Feb 10, 2014

Yulia Marushevska filmed by Graham Mitchell in Kyiv

[The Truth Will Make You Free]

I saw this movie a couple of weeks ago in DC. Pre-release showing. I also saw the Maidan area in June last year, still filled with tires, shields, and more. The movie is representative of what happened. Take aways: Ukraine wants to be part of Europe, not controlled by Russia. The mayor / President’s secret police were thugs, and more actual thugs were hired besides. Social media made the protest possible. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church was a key partner in supporting the protests. Freedom from oppressive government has a price. Putin so hates freedom, his purpose in attacking Crimea and Eastern Ukraine is undo Maidan and keep the demand for freedom from spreading to Russia.