Heeding the Lessons of the Euromaidan

The Euromaidan revolution of 2014 was a watershed moment. What began as a small group of just a few dozen people advocating for Ukraine's accession to the European Union in Kiev's Independence Square quickly turned into a mass demonstration after security forces violently disbanded the protesters. A few months later, the uprising unseated President Viktor Yanukovich, setting the conflict in eastern Ukraine in motion and kicking off the enduring standoff between Russia and the West. The demonstrations set a new precedent for protest movements, not just in Ukraine but across Eurasia: They illustrated the risks of a heavy-handed, authoritarian reaction to dissent and proved what a determined public could achieve through protest, with the help of social media. For governments throughout the region, these were troubling revelations. But as protests have become larger and more frequent across the region in the years since, leaders in certain former Soviet republics have...