Before And After: Kiev’s Independence Square After Ukrainian Riots

Bored Panda ^ | 2/19/2014

[Pan_Yan]

This striking composite photo from the riots in Ukraine helps put the extreme devastation occurring in Kiev right now into perspective. The lighter image on the left is of Independence Square in Kiev before the riots and the seemingly post-apocalyptic half of the image was taken in the same square by Olga Yakimovich for Reuters on Feb. 19th.

(via: Imgur)

[Pan_Yan]

The picture is worth taking a look at. It looks like a movie prop which makes it all the more stunning.

[Sacajaweau]

Looks like the EU is pushing the buttons...and they will do nothing for the Ukraine in the long run.

[OneVike]

Why is it I feel as if the Ukraine is better off siding with Russia?

[Paleo Conservative]

Wow! It's rather sobering to think that I was walking around that pedestal in early November of last year less that a couple of weeks before the protests started. The building on the left is a shopping mall.

[Paleo Conservative]

Pan_Yan Looks like the EU is pushing the buttons...and they will do nothing for the Ukraine in the long run.

They're not. Western Ukrainians hate Russians. It's not even safe to speak Russian in much of the western part of Ukraine.

[Zhang Fei]

Why is it I feel as if the Ukraine is better off siding with Russia?

Thanks to the Holodomor, that would be like Israel agreeing to become a client state of Germany. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I suspect after an event like that, countries can agree to let bygones be bygones, but the relationship is irretrievably soured for a long time. The Hundred Years War, which took out half of the French population over its course, arguably resulted in centuries of bad blood, amounting to hatred at times, between France and Britain that only came to an end after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.

[Paleo Conservative]

The pillar in this picture is the center of where officials were seated for the November 6, 2013 celebration of the 70th anniversary of the eviction of the Germans in WWII.

[Paleo Conservative]

Thanks to the Holodomor, that would be like Israel agreeing to become a client state of Germany.

If Germany had never been held to account for its war crimes. Communists were never tried for crimes against humanity after the Cold War the way NAZI's were tried at Neuremberg after WWII.

[Pan_Yan]

Why is it I feel as if the Ukraine is better off siding with Russia?

I'll be honest, even though this has been brewing as a major story for a while now I haven't kept up with it the way I should. It looks like lots of outside people have decided what's best for Ukraine and poured resources into making this some kind of proxy fight where no one is going to win.