Statistics of protests that have changed the Country (INFOGRAPHIC)

Total information

In total, during the period from November 21, 2013 to February 23, 2014, at least 3,950 protest events were recorded (the data is still being updated and updated). This number of protests in three months exceeds the protest activity for the whole of 2013 to November 20 (3428) and the number of protests for each of the previous years, starting in 2010.

Among the 3,950 protests during the period of 3,235 were directly linked to the Maidan and occurred in its support, and 365 can be attributed to anti-Maydan.

Notable participants of the Maidan

Among the participants of the Maidan, the organization, whose participation in the protests was more often reported by the media, is VO "Svoboda" . The participation of this party was recorded in less than 18% of the protests associated with the Maidan. Other parties took part in fewer protests of the Maidan. In particular, the participation of Rodina was recorded in 13%, IMPACT in 10%, Democratic Alliance - in 3%, Radical party - 1% of protests of Maidan. Another 2% of protest events reported the participation of opposition parties without specifying. In 5% of political participants, only unidentified politicians or deputies of local councils were recorded. In total, the participation of political parties, individual politicians, representatives of local authorities accounted for 35% of the protest events of the Maidan. At the same time, the participation of parties and politicians was higher in the initial stages of the Maidan (before January 19) - above 40% - however, sharply fell to 20% during the protest events of the last phase of the Maidan (February 18 to 23).

Among the nonpartisan participants and initiatives, the most notable was the participation of Avtomaydan (6%), the right sector (6%), Maidan Self-Defense (4%). In total, the participation of public organizations was recorded in 13% of the protest events of the Maidan.

It is important to bear in mind that this is precisely the reported participation of the media, since often participants in the protests were reported collectively, for example, "activists of EuroMaidan". In 50% of the protest events of the Maidan, thus, it was not reported about the participation of one particular party, organization, trade unions, ideological initiative. These indicators should be seen as a sort of "minimum bar" of participation in protests, as well as an indicator of its visibility for the media. In addition, it is important to remember that this is the data of participation in protest events. Promises to which protest activity was not a priority, for example, humanitarian ones like Euromaidan-SOS or "Warta in the hospital", were not expected to be seen in the information about the protest events.

The role of extreme right

In total , the involvement of the extreme right forces (Freedom, Right Sector and other Ukrainian ultranationalist parties, organizations and initiatives) was recorded in 25% of the protests of the Maidan. This obviously contradicts the propaganda pictures of Russian television, since most of the protests of Maidan, according to reports, passed without their participation, and the role of the right sector was exaggerated at times. However, this is, nevertheless, a significant share of the Maidan, which could not be neglected, hushed up or understated. But otherwise, VO "Freedom" turned out to be an active political force on the Maidan.

In addition, the visibility of "Freedom" and the Right Sector was much higher than others identified by the organization / initiative in the most violent events that received disproportionate media attention. The right-wing sector was the most active initiative in the violent protests of the Maidan, its participation in notoriety in no less than 16% of violent events. It is followed by VO "Freedom", whose participation in violence was recorded in 10% of cases. Self-defense participation in the Maidan was reported in 7% of violent protests, the remaining parties and initiatives took part in less than 3% of violent events each.

The importance of regional areas

Despite the fact that the Kiev Maydan was reported in the media more often, the share of its protests was only 13% of the total Maidan (433 protest events) .

But the leader in terms of the number of Maidan protests is the Western region , where they recorded 38% (at least 1218 protests). Also, the Kiev indicators are ahead of the Central Region with a share of 29% (at least 918 protests). Thus, two thirds of the protest events of the Maidan occurred outside of Kiev in the western and central regions . In the East and South (without Donbass and the Crimea) - 8%, in the Donbas (3%) and Crimea (1%), the number of protests is less compared to Kiev, but in the aggregate, the Maydan in the southeast regions is also ahead of Kiev in number Protests.

At the same time, among the individual cities in Kiev there was the largest number of protests of the Maidan . The closest thing to the city - Lviv - lags behind the capital more than twice (185 recorded protests). In general, among the top 10 cities in the number of protests of the Maidan, the western Ukrainian cities (Rivne, Lutsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, etc.) are expected to predominate, and there is only one city from the southeast region - Odessa (at least 94 protests).

The mass of the areas in the West and in the Center was not inferior to the Maidan. There were no bagatosotyachnyh rallies, as in December Kiev, but the number of protests Maidan with more than a thousand participants was much higher than Kiev. Such protests were recorded in 131 in the Western region, 75 in the Central and 58 in Kiev. The low mass of the Maidans was expected in the southeastern regions, especially in the Donbass and Crimea, where more than 50% of the protests of the Maidan were not collected by 100 participants.

Very indicative for understanding the real military conflict is the fact that the Maidans in the eastern and southern regions (except for the Crimea) turned out to be more party and with greater involvement of the extreme right. So, after Kiev (32%), the participation of the extreme right is high for the Maidans of the East and Donbass (29%), and the lowest for the Center (24%) and the West (23%). The same applies to the participation of opposition parties in local areas. In the Donbas (54%), in the South (51%) and in the East (40%), it was higher than in Kiev (37%), the Center (34%) and the West (29%), where the maidans were really massive Support from local residents. At the same time, opposition political parties and extreme right forces, which already had a very low level of confidence on the part of the inhabitants of the southern and eastern regions, only pushed them away from the Maidan, excluding the emergence of a genuinely nationwide movement against Yanukovych and approval of the results of the Maidan.

Violence and repression

The share and the absolute number of confrontational and violent events on the Maidan, of course, exceeded the protests of the previous period. On Maydan, 24% of confrontational protests were recorded (compared to 19% of protests in 2013 before the start of the Maidan), and 12% of violent ones (compared to 8% before the start of the Maidan in 2013). However, all the same, almost two-thirds of the protests of the Maidan (64%) occurred in a peaceful conventional manner in the form of rallies, pickets, tent camps, and the like.

Characteristically, the share of confrontations and violence was significantly higher in Kiev (49%), the Center (39%) and the West (37%), where the Maidan had mass support than in the southern and eastern regions, where radical shares were not even a quarter From all the protests of the Maidan. In terms of the number of confrontational and violent protests, Kyiv was leading among individual cities (239 events), followed by a significant margin by Western regional centers.

Our analysis indicates that the violence of the protesters was a response to the violence of the authorities, and not vice versa. If only 12% of the protests in the country's areas were violent, then every third protest experienced repression. To the negative reactions to the protests, not only the law enforcement agencies were involved. In addition to the police, at least a quarter of the repressions occur in the unknown, most often the so-called "tithe" (in addition, in a significant number of events they acted together with the police). Also active were courts - 13% of repressions.

Despite the fact that the level of violence on the part of protesters towards the dispersal of the Kiev Euromidan on November 30 was minimal (6%), every 40 protests out of hundreds faced a negative reaction from the authorities. And in the last phase of the Maidan (since February 18), when the police openly used weapons, the rate of repression of the number of protests fell by half. In general, the authorities with variable success used various tactics of confrontation with activists: ignoring, pacification and suppression. Attempts to disrupt shares and injunctions prevailed at the beginning of the Maidan, but over time methods became more radical. The authorities began to actively use the courts already for repression directly against the activists, the pressure of law enforcement bodies and the number of arrests increased. Finally, the authorities blocked the protesters on the Maidan and switched to open violence.

There are also regional features of the use of various methods of repression. In all regions there is a consistently high share of the physical confrontation of the police with the protesters. In Kiev, all repressive court decisions were made, and in the Center - obstacles were created for activists seeking to get to the central Maidan. In the East, active "titles". Protesters in the West were more active, including because they met with less resistance from local authorities.

reference

The monitoring of protests, repression and concessions is carried out by the Center for the Study of the Society since October 2009. This is a unique project for the systematic collection of information about all (regardless of the subject and size) protests, repression and concessions in response to real-time protests throughout Ukraine based on the monitoring of more than 190 national, regional and activist web media.

The objective of this project, implemented by the Center for the Study of Society with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation and the National Endowment for Democracy, is the objective study of protest activities and social movements in Ukraine and bringing this information to the attention of the general public in order to protect the right to peaceful assembly and draw attention to Grassroots socio-economic protest initiatives.

The Center for Social Research was established in 2009 as an independent non-profit center for studying social problems and collective protests in Ukraine. The CSD brought together critically oriented social researchers: professional sociologists, political scientists, economists, culturologists, historians and lawyers. The mission of the Center is the creation of methodologically sound, critical, reflexive knowledge for activists of social movements, journalists, experts, politicians, researchers and the general public. The Center actively supports the egalitarian and just society, against the policy of privatization and commercialization of the social sphere and public goods, condemns any discrimination, including socio-economic indicators, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, race, age. Specific directions of the Center's work are analysis of educational reforms, monitoring of protest and repressive activity, analysis of town-planning policies and the study of migration processes.

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