Ukraine is marking the 10th anniversary of the start of the euromidan movement. That was when Ukrainians en Masse began joining a growing protest against official corruption and the government's shift towards Russia. The movement known as the Euromidan or simply the Maidan eventually toppled the government. Our reporter Olga Malchev assesses its significance.

That's where the Ukraine's fight for becoming a part of Europe has started. Ten years ago, the independent square in central Kiev. Well, the locals often call it Maidan, which means simply a square in Ukrainian. That's why these protests were called Maidan uprising around the globe. Ukrainians call them the Euromaidan Revolution or the Revolution of dignity. The first activists gathered on Maidan on the 21 November to disagree with the Ukrainian president Viktor Yunukovych after he refused to sign a deal with European Union. Now, the deal was aimed to make Ukraine closer to joining the European Union and to ease trade and travels. Between EU and Ukraine. While President Yanukovych made a uturn decided to strengthen ties with Russia and his long term close ally, Vladimir Putin. Activists demanded Yanukovyz to resign. He sent the police to stop the protest with violence, but it only made Ukrainians angry with the regime and stronger in their desire to change it. As a result, President Yanukovych lost his chair and escaped to Russia. Russia then invaded Ukraine first sending its so called green men to crimea and the next in it, and then seizing parts of Donbas and supporting a conflict there until its full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

I spoke to a Ukrainian activist, Natalka Sokolenka, from this picture she was on. Euromaidan from its very beginning. And she sent this video to us. She recorded it in her flats in Kiev between the air raids. And you can spot there. Her windows protected with a tape from the blast waves.

If the Ramadan revolution did not happen, russia would invade Ukraine anyway. Vladimir Putin announced such plans at the Munich Security Conference back in 2007 by saying that he wanted to bring the USSR back. That means reoccupying Ukraine in my. Opinion, the main achievement of Iromaidan is Ukraine's firm choice to be a part of democratic Europe without looking back at totalitarian past with Russia.

Now, Ukraine, a decade later, did become closer to the European Union despite the war. And the high cost. There is now a visa free travel regime between Ukraine and European Union. And just some days ago, European Commission recommended that Ukraine and Moldova open membership negotiations.

Olga Malchevsky. There reporting.