Through February 23, we are marking the 11th anniversary of Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity. It started with a Facebook post summoning protesters to the Independence Monument on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) on November 21, 2013. It ended when disgraced, corrupt pro-russian president Viktor Yanukovych fled Ukraine for russia in the wee hours of February 22, 2014, and Verkhovna Rada officially removed him from the presidency.

That's a very nice hat.

Do you like it? She made it herself.

On January 16, 2014, a voting bloc consisting of Yanukovych's Party of Regions, the Communist Party, and a few independent MPs violated Verkhovna Rada procedures to adopt a set of draconian laws aimed at quelling dissent and quashing the revolution.

Ukrainians would have none of that. The dictatorial new laws did nothing to diminish the presence on Maidan. The laws were ignored and widely mocked. Some, in defiance of the new law against helmets, wore cooking pots and colanders on their heads.

The laws had a more sinister effect than defiant snark: they made Ukrainians ever more determined to get out of Yanukovych's–and therefore russia's–grasp. Massive clashes erupted between the Maidanivtsi and the government forces, culminating in the Hrushevskoho Street riots and the first murders of protesters on Maidan.

Verkhovna Rada cancelled nine of the laws on January 28, 2014, but the damage was done. There was no going back.

Evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction.