Special envoy to kyiv
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In kyiv, Oleh Radiyutchouk strolls along the cobblestones of Maidan Square, which he knows by heart.
But there is one artery where this activist no longer sets foot: the rue de l'Institut, renamed the alley of the Heroes of the Celestial Centurie.
“It would be like walking on the dead
,” breathes the forty-year-old.
At the end of February, many passers-by came to lay flowers on this sloping street which leads to the Ukrainian presidency and pays tribute to the hundred demonstrators who died during the 2014 revolution. Ten years ago, on the night of the 20th February 21, pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych fled to Moscow, after the failure of a violent and deadly operation to retake the place.
“It was here, in Maidan, that for the first time blood flowed on the European flag, that people died for this flag
,” said Oleh, moved.
This veteran of the “Orange Revolution” of 2004, a former civil servant, worked at the foreign investment agency at the time…
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