12 years ago today, snipers killed 48 unarmed protesters on Instytutska Street in Kyiv. Despite the killings, Yanukovych couldn't quash Euromaidan—he fled the next night, on 21 February 2014.
Russia's response was war. Within days, the Kremlin moved on Crimea. Within weeks, it sent officers and weapons into Donbas. When eight years of proxy war failed to break Ukraine, Putin launched a full-scale invasion.
The Heavenly Hundred were this war's first casualties.