This is a first step, but not enough, and the battle is clearly not over

As of late on 26 November, seven Ukrainians had reportedly joined Maidan lawyer Yevhenia Zakrevska’s hunger strike in protest at the effective sabotage of Ukraine’s investigations into the killings, persecution and other crimes against Euromaidan activists

104 Maidan activists were killed during Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity in the winter of 2013-14. Six years later, Yevhenia Zakrevska, one of the lawyers representing the slain activists’ families has gone on hunger strike in a desperate attempt to force Ukraine’s leaders to prevent the collapse of almost all Maidan investigations.

This sixth anniversary of the beginning of the Euromaidan protests is especially sombre as Ukraine’s President and parliamentarians appear unwilling to prevent the collapse of investigations into Maidan crimes

Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada had the chance on 15 November to save investigations into Maidan crimes from imminent collapse. It failed the test and betrayed the families of over 100 Maidan activists killed during the protests – Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity - and those wounded

Ukraine’s leaders have literally eight days to prevent investigations into crimes against Maidan activists from falling into a black hole from which few, if any, will emerge

The families of those killed during Euromaidan, lawyers and civic activists have addressed a desperate plea to Ukraine’s leaders, warning that all progress in Maidan investigations will be lost unless action is taken immediately.

The prosecutors have said they will certainly appeal against the acquittal of Andriy Khandrykin, a former Kharkiv Berkut officer and, seemingly, a current police officer, who was accused of torturing two Euromaidan activists

Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko has closed part of the Special Investigations Department responsible for the only progress made to date on prosecutions for crimes against Maidan activists

One of the ex-Berkut officers whom Ukraine wants to prosecute for his leading role in the savage attack on Maidan activists on 30 November 2013 has been spotted among the commanders of an equally vicious attack on protesters in Moscow

The Svyatoshynsky District Court in Kyiv has released under 24-hour house arrest Serhiy Tamtur, one of the five men accused of mass killing during the bloodiest day of Euromaidan

Volodymyr Hrynyak is suspected of involvement in organizing the deliberate killing of Maidan protests on 18 February, 2014, making it baffling that he continues to hold high office

If post-Maidan hopes of a full overhaul of Ukraine’s judiciary always seemed dangerously optimistic, there was an expectation that judges who had taken part in persecuting Maidan activists would not be able to continue as though nothing had happened

Five years after the bloodiest days of Euromaidan, the families of the slain [Nebesna Sotnya] are planning to seek justice at the European Court of Human Rights

Viktor Kraitor, the former head of the SBU [Security Service] in Khmelnytsky has again avoided detention, although he is facing serious charges over his role in the fatal shooting of local Maidan activists on 19 February 2014

Five years after the Euromaidan protests began in Ukraine, ten men suspected of crimes against Maidan activists hold managerial posts in the enforcement bodies, while a further 23 are low-ranking officers.  The number of convictions remains fairly small (52), with only nine people sentenced to periods of imprisonment.

The Kyiv authorities have done nothing to enable vital investigative experiments to be carried out in order to establish exactly where the shots that killed Maidan activists were fired form and within a month it could be too late as major construction work is planned.

The presiding judge in the trial by absentia of fugitive ex-President Viktor Yanukovych gained notoriety during Euromaidan for knowingly unwarranted rulings against peaceful activists.  Most worryingly, this is probably no oversight, but a quite deliberate choice of judge.   

Lawyers representing the families of slain Euromaidan activists have warned that current and future investigations into crimes against Maidan activists are in jeopardy with the danger, most frustratingly, coming from Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko.

Oleh Linnyk, the judge who passed a suspended sentence on Yuri Krysin for his direct role in the savage beating and murder of journalist Vyacheslav Veremiy during Euromaidan, has ceased to be a judge of the Shevchenkivsky District Court in Kyiv, after resigning ahead of a High Council of Justice session where a call for his dismissal was scheduled to be heard.