{"id":3466,"date":"2025-10-01T21:37:36","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T13:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moresourcing.com\/video-ukraine-zelenskyy-maidan-postcard\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T21:37:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T13:37:36","slug":"video-ukraine-zelenskyy-maidan-postcard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moresourcing.com\/en\/video-ukraine-zelenskyy-maidan-postcard\/","title":{"rendered":"Volodymyr Zelenskyy filming himself in Ukraine : NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR’s international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Maidan, Kyiv’s Independence Square, has been the heart of political change in Ukraine for more than two decades. While visiting NPR’s team covering Ukraine \u2014 correspondent Joanna Kakissis and producers Hanna Palamarenko and Polina Lytvynova \u2014 I went back to the square, where history-making news events have drawn me for over two decades. <\/p>\n

Memories flooded back of two people-power revolutions against Kremlin influence.<\/p>\n

In 2004, no one knew if police would fire on protesters. Instead, a cop climbed on stage, knelt, and kissed the flag. Hundreds of thousands erupted in cheers and tears. A decade later, riot police snipers opened fire on demonstrators carrying wooden shields and European Union flags: unarmed men, incredibly, running towards the bullets, leaving 40 dead, but turning the political tide. The president fled to Russia. Those weeks saw students, pensioners, veterans, doctors and teachers stand in freezing temperatures around giant stages, teaching politicians that this was not a crowd to lead, but one to follow.<\/p>\n

Those revolutions helped pave the way for the unlikely rise of comedian<\/a> Volodymyr Zelenskyy. First he broke character to call for peace, then became president, and later morphed into a wartime leader nicknamed “Churchill with an iPhone,” recording defiant videos just steps from the square.<\/p>\n