Protesters and police continue to clash on the streets of Ukraine as government efforts to appease the demonstrators appear to be moot points.

The demonstrations began last November after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych decided not to sign a European integration agreement, which would have strengthened the country’s ties to the west, in favor of a closer relationship with neighboring Russia.

While this was the original spark that led to protests, violent exchanges with police and Ukrainian Special Forces have led to a breakdown in order- something that concerns the government and moderate protesters alike.

“So while the revolution is still holding onto that European sentiment, Europe no longer means European Union. Europe means that dignity that people deserve living in the 21st century,” Julian Hayda of the Euromaiden Journalist Collective said. “Modern human rights is being associated with Europe. It’s not about the European Union anymore, it’s about human decency.”

The EJC was formed in December to report on the revolution, and Hayda, a digital cinema student at DePaul, went to Ukraine with a colleague from Fordham University. During their visit, they collected video footage and interviews with protesters, clergy and Ukrainian government officials.

When the protests were beginning to die down a few months ago, the government started to crack down on protesters, which backfired as it only further motivated them to keep protesting, sometimes turning violent. Five people have been killed so far, and a former Ukrainian president warned Parliament to be responsible, as he believed that a civil war was not too far off the horizon.

“They want a new constitution- they have wanted itatleastsincelateNovember when the protest started turning violent,” Hayda said. “When the government started exerting violence on the protesters, that’s when it became a revolution.”

The president has never had strong support in the western part of the country, and now he appears to be losing some of his core supporters in the south and east. To try and quell the violence, his government has begun to offer concessions to the protesters, such as offering amnesty if they leave government buildings and offering the prime minister position to one of the main opposition leaders.

However, nothing further has come of this effort.

“It’s too little too late. If that was the offer made a month and a half ago, I think they would have taken it and the protests would have died down,” Hayda said. “But the government has tried too much to put down the protests, that by now they think’s an empty promise.”

One of the ways the government tried to suppress the people in the streets was a series of secret laws passed by the Parliament that limited the freedom of speech and assembly that the protesters had. These laws have since been repealed as they severely backfired on the government.

“They thought that they could enforce them, but when it came for them to enforce them, it just caused even more chaos than there ever was before,” Hayda said.

With the unpredictable nature of the conflict, it is anyone’s guess as to what may happen next.

“This is how nations evolve, and it’s amazing to read it happening on a phone that I can hold in my hand,” DePaul freshman Wynn Drahorad said.

With the negotiations stalled as the president takes a sick leave, a divided country waits to see what tomorrow may bring.

“A lot of people believe that there’s no way to end the protests until there’s a new constitution and until there’s an entirely new government because the system in place now is just too easy to take advantage of,” Hayda said.