A conversation with Yevhenii Monastyrskyi, a Luhansk native, historian, and sociologist. Interviewer: Simona Merkinaite, Vilnius University, Open Lithuania Foundation.

An interview with Ihor Poshyvailo, director of the National Memorial to the Heavenly Hundred Heroes and Revolution of Dignity Museum (Maidan Museum) in Kyiv. Interviewer: Tomasz Lachowski

TOMASZ LACHOWSKI: You are the director of the Maidan Museum, the fundamental role of which is to commemorate events of the Revolution of Dignity that occurred during the winter of 2013 and 2014 in Kyiv. We often understand museums as institutions that present historical events long after they happened. In the case of the Maidan, we are talking about events that happened only several years ago. When exactly did the idea to create a museum appear and how did you manage to develop the project?

IHOR POSHYVAILO: The Maidan Museum as an idea was initiated during the Revolution of Dignity itself. My museum colleagues and I decided to document as carefully as possible what was happening in Kyiv. We realised quite early that what was taking place in the winter of 2013 and 2014 certainly would not be a simple repetition of the Orange Revolution of 2004, and we became well aware that we had to be among and with the people at this exceptional time. The turning point was certainly January 16th 2014, when the so-called “dictatorial laws” were enacted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and violent clashes broke out, even though we had been documenting the protests at the very beginning of the movement.

Exploring the similarities and differences between the post-Soviet paths of Belarus and Ukraine.

A recent forum of democratic forces in Kyiv may have finally started the formation of a broad pro-reform coalition of largely untainted Ukrainian anti-corruption fighters.

Interview with Paweł Kowal, a post-doctoral fellow at the College of Europe in Natolin and former Member of the European Parliament. Interviewer: Iwona Reichardt

Interview with Marci Shore, associate professor of history at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Interviewers: Kate Langdon and Jordan Luber

The recent protests in Ukraine demonstrate the authorities’ lack of vision and leadership. There is a high demand for mobilising and engaging projects, which could utilise the high social energy, but there is nothing on offer. Therefore political turbulence will continue.

The European Union’s commitment to the Eastern Partnership region has been cemented by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, but for internal reasons, the EU is trying to avoid the costs linked to the countries’ integration. For Russia, the region is vitally important but Moscow cannot muster the resources or an attractive alternative to keep the countries close.

Ukraine: The European frontier - a blog curated by Valerii Pekar.

Ukraine’s decentralisation was one of the first, fastest and most comprehensive reforms initiated by the initial post-EuroMaidan government in March 2014, and its then vice-prime minister and today head of government Volodymyr Groysman. While amounting to a deep transformation of state-society relations in Ukraine, the underlying ideas and first successes of this large restructuring of Ukraine’s governmental system have so far been hardly noted outside Ukraine. Contrary to widespread Western belief, neither the concept nor the initiation of decentralisation had much to do, as some believe, with Ukraine’s Association Agreement with the EU signed in July 2014, or with the Minsk Agreements signed in September 2014 and February 2015. Now entering its third year, the ongoing reorganisation of Ukraine’s local public administration, instead, had already been hotly discussed, meticulously planned and unsuccessfully attempted for many years before the 2013-2014 Revolution of Dignity.

Ukraine: The European frontier - a blog curated by Valerii Pekar.

On February 20th 2014, 53 people were shot dead in central Kyiv. Altogether, the death toll between February 18th and 21st reached 113 people. Two years on there are still no feasible answers to the main questions both about the killings and the future of the country.