We're melting. Ukraine 2014

Why the EuroMaidan protesters finally went to war. Never before seen images taken right up to the night of the 17th February 2014. That next fateful day, 18th February, on yet another march, this time to the state parliament, protesters came under fire once again from government forces. Prior to this confrontation, the Commandant of these protest forces had been increasing worried that his encampment and their barriers, largely constructed of snow and erected around the main square in the centre of Kiev, the Maidan Nezalezhnosti, were daily becoming severely compromised in that they were melting. Looking back at the increasingly overtly aggressive troop training and shows of paramilitary force that he had sanctioned in early February, it is clear in hindsight that he'd decided that a tipping point had been reached and that by bringing events to a head that day he was prepared to gamble, in effect a winner takes all move, that whilst it eventually succeeded, his plan initially did fail.