Most of us are big fans of Codeforces, which is apparently a Russian programming website. Through this website, we got to know more about algorithms, and in particular, we noticed the excellence of ex-USSR countries(particularly Russia,Ukraine and Belarus) at the field of algorithms.
Many of us are university or high school students, and most of us(at this age) have scientific, as well as social curiousity. We are curious about our countries, and about what is going on in the world. Since Ukrainian coders are very active here on Codeforces, I would like to ask them to clarify what is going on in their beautiful country. Although Codeforces is a programming website, not a political one, it is(in my opinion) still important to know others' points of view, especially if those others are people who share some sides of your personality(such as the passion for algorithms in this case).
If this is violating Codeforces rules in anyway, please remove this blog entry.
As I remember, not so long ago there was a post in Russian about some Russian team which missed some competitive programming related event in Kharkiv.
The problem was that their university (Russian) chiefs did not allow the team to go to Kharkiv (Ukraine) on pretext that it is not safe.
However, users currently residing in Ukraine answered that the rumors of horrors are significantly exaggerated by media. As user BorN states "I live in Kiev, travel by subway every day and experience no troubles".
Oh, you should not expect anyone to clarify such matters. As you probably have seen the last years were full of civil disorder cases in many countries. And (my personal opinion) in all these cases such actions are directly or indirectly supported by other countries having their own interests. You see, the Ukraine is "the largest country (by area) entirely within Europe" so the issue of making it more close to European Union surely is strongly lobbied by some countries and strongly unwanted by some others. And surely both sides will undertake some measures to push their interests :)
I am citizen of Ukraine and here is my opinion.
There are many sides of Ukrainian conflict.
1) President and Ukrainian government, supported by Russia. They just want to have power.
2) Opposition, supported by EU and USA. They just want to have power too.
3) Peaceful protesters, who just want to live in good country
4) Not peaceful protesters. Their ideas are contradictory and their behavior is often outlawed. But because of them our Prime Minister left his position, and I think this is really good. But again — these people, in my opinion, did a lot of bad things too. Because of their fights with Ukrainian version of police people have died, and this is very sad.
I want to note again that this is just my opinion.
As I can see, Ukraine must develop relations both with Russia and EU. It's nonsence to break/reduce such links without clear reason. Ukraine trade stats shows that.
Anyway, I hope it will end peacefully and good.
Well, it's not that easy. Our country is under pressure both from EU and Russian politicians. We also have a lot of people in western part of Ukraine who like EU and dislike Russia. On the other hand, a lot of people in eastern Ukraine like Russia and dislike EU.
I think here is one of the most detailed post on what's going on in Uktaine. It explains not only current political situation but also gives you a wide understanding of what is Ukraine and what led it to this state.
Answer to the question 2 (Why are so many Ukrainians protesting?) isn't good. The greatest protests began after 30 of November when people on protest were brutally beaten by berkut.
I hope, the discussion will not be detailed more, because it has a potential for unlimited growth and unlimited fury. There are a lot of contradictive opinions about the subject and a lot of other resources to discuss them. :)