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The Ukrainian revolution of 2014 (also known as the Euromaidan Revolution or Revolution of Dignity; Ukrainian: Революція гідності, Revoliutsiia hidnosti) took place in Ukraine in February 2014, when a series of violent events involving protesters, riot police, and unknown shooters in the capital, Kiev, culminated in the ousting of the elected Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, and the overthrow of the Ukrainian Government.[34] Successive Ukrainian governments in the 2000s sought a closer relationship with the European Union (EU).[35][36] The government of Yanukovych was negotiating an association agreement with the European Union since 2012.[37] Such comprehensive trade agreement with the EU would have impacted Ukraine's trade agreements with Russia, the latter being Ukraine's biggest trade partner at the time.[38] Yanukovych believed that the complications could be addressed, and he said that he intended to enter the agreement,[39] but continued to postpone.[40] This was interpreted as an attempt to back out of signing this agreement, and led to a wave of protests which came to be known as the "Euromaidan" movement.[41] Clashes between the protestors and the riot police became violent, and resulted in deaths of nearly 130 people, including 18 police officers.[42] As the tensions rose, the personal safety for the president became untenable;[43] on February 22 he fled from Kiev to Russia.[41] The protesters proceeded to take control of the government. On the same day, the parliament declared that Yanukovych was relieved of duty in a 328-to-0 vote.[44][45][46] Yanukovych said that this vote was illegal and possibly coerced, and asked Russian Federation for assistance.[47] Russia considered the overthrow of Yanukovych to be an illegal coup, and did not recognize the interim government that was put in place by the protesters.[48] Widespread protests against the revolution occurred in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, where Yanukovych received strong support in the 2010 presidential election. These protests escalated into 2014 Crimean status referendum, Russian military intervention,[49][50] and the establishment of de facto independent states in Donetsk and Luhansk. The interim government, led by Arseniy Yatsenyuk, proceeded to sign the EU association agreement. Petro Poroshenko became the president of Ukraine after a landslide victory in the unscheduled 2014 presidential elections. The new government restored the 2004 amendments to the Ukrainian constitution that were controversially repealed as unconstitutional in 2010,[51] and initiated a large-scale purge of civil servants who were associated with the overthrown regime.[52][53][54] The Law on Regional Languages, which allowed Ukrainian regions with large cultural minorities to use their own languages in their local administration, was repealed. A December 2016 survey by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology found that 34 percent of respondents in the government-controlled Ukraine regarded the change in power as an "illegal armed coup", while 56 percent regarded it as a "popular revolution".[55] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_revolution