It was 1 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 11, and it was cold throughout Ukraine — no more than 12 degrees. The streets were covered in snow and ice. It was snowing in the capital. A cold wind was blowing.

The stern-looking men came to the capital city by the thousands, some of them by buses from hundreds of miles away. They wore black coats and gloves. On their heads were black helmets. In their hands were shields and nightsticks.

I woke up in my niece’s apartment, 300 miles west of Kiev. It was the middle of the night. From her kitchen I heard the television. My niece, herself a lawyer, went through a range of reactions as she saw the police advancing on the crowds, tearing apart barricades, moving forward. She wanted to cry. She wanted to shout out. Then she got angry. (Read more.)