"Heavenly Hundred" honored on Maidan bloodshed anniversary:
By RFE/RL
Ukrainians are commemorating the fourth anniversary of the bloodiest day of the pro-European protests known as the Euromaidan.
The annual commemorations honor protesters, known as the "Heavenly Hundred," who were killed in clashes with security forces in Kyiv.
The Euromaidan movement began in November 2013, when protesters gathered in central Kyiv after pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych announced he was postponing plans to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union and would seek closer economic ties with Russia.
Ukrainian prosecutors say 104 people were killed and 2,500 injured in the protests.
The protests ended with Yanukovych fleeing Kyiv on February 21, 2014. The former president, who took refuge in Russia, denies ordering police to fire on protesters and claims the violence was a "planned operation" to overthrow his government.
Moscow responded to his downfall by seizing control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and fomenting separatism across much of the country -- one of the causes of a war that has killed more than 10,000 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014 and displaced more than 1.6 million Ukrainians.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is due to testify on February 21 at Yanukovych's treason trial in absentia.
"Evil must be punished. That is why, for the first time in Ukrainian history, I decided to take part in the trial," Poroshenko said in Kyiv on February 18.
"It is unprecedented when the president takes part personally, but this [trial] concerns everybody," he added.
Meanwhile, in a statement marking the February 20 events, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said that "the United States will continue to stand by Ukraine as it faces ongoing Russian aggression."
Nauert added that although Ukraine had made progress in the last four years, "there is still more work needed to fulfill the promise of the Maidan and unlock Ukraine's potential."
"The United States calls on Ukraine's leaders to redouble their efforts to implement the deep, comprehensive, and timely reforms that are necessary to build the stable, democratic, prosperous, and free country Ukrainians deserve," Nauert said.