Taras Ratushnyy remembers receiving a phone call from his son Roman during Ukraine\u2019s deadly 2013 Maidan Revolution. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m okay, we are coming back home with my friends from (Kyiv\u2019s Maidan Square). Don\u2019t worry and good night,\u201d Roman said over the phone \u2013 even while Taras heard that same voice blaring from his television as his 16-year-old son declared the protesters\u2019 plans to storm a building.\u00a0<\/em> <\/p>\n The protests, which spread across Ukraine and came to symbolize its existential tug-of-war between Europe and Russia, set into motion a young generation determined to shape the nation\u2019s future \u2013 and at the fore was Roman. <\/p>\n In some ways, his political convictions began long before Maidan. Both his parents were previously activists and journalists; his mother Svitlana Povalyaeva, also a writer and poet, took part in the Maidan Revolution alongside her two sons. <\/p>\n But that path became clear as Roman came of age against the backdrop of Russia\u2019s illegal annexation of Crimea, and violence between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the eastern regions. <\/p>\n By 2022, he had become a well-known environmental and anti-corruption activist, with a following of supporters and admirers. <\/p>\n Then, Russia invaded Ukraine. <\/p>\n Roman immediately enlisted with the military, as did his brother and father. Nine years after the Maidan Revolution lit a spark, he was again fighting on the front lines for the future of his country, and for the democratic hopes shared by many of his generation. <\/p>\n But he knew he might not survive this fight. By May that year, Ukraine was losing up to 100 soldiers a day, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky. <\/p>\n That month, Roman \u2013 who \u201chad a plan for everything he did,\u201d Taras said \u2013 wrote his last will and testament on a single sheet of A4 paper, using both sides. <\/p>\n He laid out requests for his funeral \u2013 the ceremony, the music, the Cossack cross monument. He quoted one of his mother\u2019s poems. And he dedicated his love to the city where he was born, as were his parents, and grandparents: \u201cKyiv, I died far from you, but I died for you.\u201d <\/p>\n Two weeks later, on June 8, 2022, Roman was killed in action near Izium, in eastern Ukraine\u2019s Kharkiv Oblast. He was 24 years old. <\/p>\n The Maidan protests were sparked by Ukraine\u2019s then-President Viktor Yanukovych abruptly scrapping a trade deal with the European Union. Supporters of the deal had hoped it would bring Ukraine closer to the West, generate economic growth, and open borders to trade. <\/p>\n Instead, Yanukovych \u2013 a pro-Russia leader \u2013 turned toward Moscow, striking new deals with Vladimir Putin, and dashing the opposition\u2019s hopes of stronger ties with Europe. <\/p>\n Furious, thousands of demonstrators occupied Kyiv\u2019s Maidan, or Independence Square. Over the months, the protests swelled to represent broader outrage over Yanukovych\u2019s policies, widespread government corruption, and police brutality \u2014 as well as the movement\u2019s pro-democracy, Europe-leaning dreams. <\/p>\n In the midst of all this was Roman. At the time, the best way to find the 16-year-old was to \u201cgo to the hottest point (of the clashes),\u201d said Taras. \u201cNinety-nine percent (of the time) he was there, and one percent\u00a0he was sleeping somewhere because he was out of batteries.\u201d <\/p>\n In her book about the revolution, history professor Marci Shore recalled asking Roman whether his mother was upset about his participation in the protests. The teenager replied: \u201cMy mother was making Molotov cocktails on Hrushevskogo Street.\u201d <\/p>\n The ensuing crackdown came to a head on February 20, 2014, when police and government forces opened fire on protesters. About 100 people are believed to have died during the revolution, which ultimately saw Yanukovych ousted and exiled from Ukraine. <\/p>\n The movement triggered a chain of events that would roil Ukraine for years, including the annexation of Crimea and the simmering conflict in the east near Russia\u2019s border. But it also brought a spate of government reforms \u2013 and hope to a generation of young Ukrainians hungry for change. <\/p>\n \u201cJust like (how) you can\u2019t see the forest for the trees, we, as participants of the Maidan, may not be able to see now what impact this event had on the whole history of Ukraine, but I hope it had a serious impact,\u201d said Roman said in a YouTube video uploaded in 2014, near the anniversary of the protests. <\/p>\n \u201cFor me, all that was not in vain,\u201d he added. \u201cI see a huge number of positive changes in this country. And they happened only thanks to Maidan.\u201d <\/p>\n When the war broke out in 2022, Roman \u2013 who had become known for fighting to protect a green space in Kyiv from real estate development \u2013 joined the Battle of Kyiv to push Russian forces from the capital. <\/p>\n He then joined the 93rd separate mechanized brigade, helping to liberate a town from Russian occupation and fighting in Ukraine\u2019s northeastern Sumy Oblast. <\/p>\n Through it all, he posted occasional Instagram photos of himself and fellow soldiers \u2013 at one point posting a poem by the executed Ukrainian intellectual Mykhail Semenko. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen I die, I will die not of death \/ but of life,\u201d reads one translation of the poem by Ukrainian-American writer Boris Dralyuk. \u201cWhen all nature grows calm, I\u2019ll depart, \/ ahead of the last stormy night \u2013 \/ in a flash, when death seizes my heart, \/ my youth, my life, and my fight.\u201d <\/p>\n His father, meanwhile, tried not to think about the danger Roman was in. <\/p>\n \u201cAll I can do is ask, how are you? How can I help you? But (those were) kind of stupid questions from a father who is very far and cannot make any impact on his condition,\u201d Taras said during his visit to the cemetery in November. <\/p>\n After Roman was killed\u00a0in June 2022, his body was brought back to Kyiv, with the funeral and memorial service attended by hundreds of mourners including the city mayor. Large crowds gathered in Independence Square to pay tribute \u2013 the very place he had fought as a young protester in 2013, when his future stretched long and bright before him. <\/p>\n Now, more than a year later, the memory of Roman\u2019s legacy \u2013 and that of the Maidan Revolution \u2013 continues to resonate with Ukrainians as the war grinds on into its second winter, and as Ukraine pushes hard to join the European Union. <\/p>\n This longtime ambition took a step forward in November, when the bloc\u2019s executive body said detailed negotiations for membership should begin next year. <\/p>\n \u201cI wish him to be proud of us. I see that it\u2019s one year and more (since his death), but almost every day something is going on connected with Roman,\u201d Taras said, visibly emotional. \u201cThousands of Ukrainians are stepping into the battle in his name trying to continue what he did. I see that Roman is still in action.\u201d <\/p>\n\n Taras Ratushnyy remembers receiving a phone call from his son Roman during Ukraine\u2019s deadly 2013 Maidan Revolution. \u201cI\u2019m okay, we are coming back home with my friends from (Kyiv\u2019s Maidan Square). Don\u2019t worry and good night,\u201d Roman said over the phone \u2013 even while Taras heard that same voice blaring from his television as his <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Fighting for a European future<\/h2>\n
\u2018My youth, my life, and my fight\u2019<\/h2>\n