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Ukraine's Protest Rise Began Long Before Euromaidan – Poll

© RIA Novosti . Alexey Filippov / Go to the mediabankIndependence Square in Kiev
Independence Square in Kiev - Sputnik International
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Protest activity in Ukraine began rising years ago, long before last December's Maidan demonstrations, a public poll by the non-profit Centre for Society Research in Ukraine has revealed.

MOSCOW, May 14 (RIA Novosti) – Protest activity in Ukraine began rising years ago, long before last December's Maidan demonstrations, a public poll by the non-profit Centre for Society Research in Ukraine has revealed.

"The increase in the number of protests is caused not only by Euromaidan," according to the report published on the center’s website Tuesday.

More than 70 percent of last year's nearly 5,000 protests in the country took place between January and November, double the amount four years ago.

The polling was conducted between 2009 and 2014 and monitored all protests, regardless of subject, size or location.

The political crisis erupted in Ukraine in November 2013, when the Cabinet of Ministers announced a halt to the country’s European integration. Mass protests, called Euromaidan, started in Kiev’s Independence Square, ultimately resulting in the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych in a coup on February 22. The protest movement spread across the country, resulting in violent armed clashes between radicals and police and around 100 deaths.

At least 16 protests with more than 10,000 participants took place outside of Kyiv – in Simferopol, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Lviv, Odesa, Rivne, Ternopil and Zaporizhia – according to the report.

Not only did the protests increase in frequency, but their demands changed as well. Maidan prompted a rapid growth in protests combining demands of political and ideological nature, as well as on human rights. Cases of violence also became more common by the end of last year, which the report said "will likely be the last year of mostly peaceful protests in the near future."

"Considering bad economic forecasts for Ukraine, we should not expect a decrease in this wave of protest. Now the main question is whether there will be a political force or social movement which would be able to articulate and foreground socioeconomic demands shared in both the West and the East and unite Ukrainians in the struggle for social justice," the researchers said.

The research was supported by the International Renaissance Foundation, a non-profit founded by American billionaire George Soros, and the US National Endowment for Democracy.

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