Meet the Brains Behind Ukraine’s Massive Protests

December 3, 2013 Black Truth News Community News, Politics, Recent Posts

Yehor Sobolev, one of the “commandants” of Kyiv’s EuroMaydan protests, has kept a watchful eye on Viktor Yanukovych since his early days as a financial reporter in the president’s hometown of Donetsk. In 2004, as a freelance journalist, he gained rare access to Yanukovych and his staff during the controversial election that led to the Orange Revolution and the first Maydan protests.

Sobolev went on to tackle censorship on Ukraine’s central television channels as head of Kyiv’s media labor union and became the co-host of the popular Vremya news program. He abandoned television, however, after fallouts with oligarchs Petro Poroshenko, the head of Vremya broadcaster Channel 5, and Rinat Akhmetov, who broke Sobolev’s contract just two hours after hiring him as a top editor at his Ukrayina station. (Sobolev’s wife, Marichka Padalka, is herself a popular television host.)

Sobolev went on to create an independent center for investigative reporting, but finally left journalism for good this year, with the formation of his political activist group, Volya (Will). One of his first actions was storming the Kyiv city administration this summer in a protest over the failure to hold a mayoral election. As EuroMaydan continues, Sobolev has proved an able strategist, mapping out blockades and urging cool heads.

“Throwing stones only hurts people and takes away our moral high ground,” he wrote in a December 2 blog post, one day after violent clashes between protesters and police outside the presidential administration building. “Give [the authorities] a chance to feel that no one need be thrown out. Show even Yanukovych himself that it’s possible to walk away. Lure ministers and regional leaders with the notion of joining the people before it’s too late. Between this and paralyzing the streets, the government will fall.”