In Kiev, you can walk up the stairs from the metro onto a square that’s been home to three revolutions in thirty years, and any number of protests large and small. With its memorials, monuments, and a few men dressed up in panda suits, Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) has become synonymous with modern Ukraine.
“For me, it’s Jerusalem,” says Sviatoslav Yurash, an activist who worked as part of an international public relations team for protesters during the 2013-14 revolution that toppled then-president Viktor Yanukovych, a client of Paul Manafort’s. “It’s the place that changed it all for me and for Ukraine.”