American politicians join Ukrainians for rally commemorating Maidan in Chicago

By Julian Hayda, VIDIA
Produced for Ukrainian Chiсago

Ukrainian Americans in the middle of Chicago’s Ukrainian Village, huddled for warmth in inadvertent solidarity with their countrymen who stood for the Revolution of Dignity in Kyiv, half a world away.

Following a prayer service at Sts. Volodymyr and Olha Church, the crowd descended its stairs for a rally commemorating a year to the day since hundreds of students were beaten by Ukraine’s Special Forces for condemning then-president Viktor Yanukovych’s withdrawal from a European Union integration deal. Thee months of protesting and over a hundred dead later, Yanukovych fled, and a new government was formed.

Participants of the rally, though there to commemorate the Maidan, largely expressed their anger over the separatist war in Eastern Ukraine that has been instigated by Russian-backed rebels following the new government’s rise to power.

Many of the rally’s participants held signs blaming the Russian Federation and its president for the explosion of Malaysian Airlines flight 17 over Eastern Ukraine in July, others pushed for the passage of pending American legislation to support the new Ukrainian government’s defense efforts.

The latter group was heard loud and clear by the legislators attending the rally: Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who in a bipartisan show of support to Ukraine, promised to live up to the demands of their Ukrainian constituents.

The rally was hosted by the Illinois branch of Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA).