May 25, 2014 Presidential Election
OP-ED
Thomas L. Friedman: It’s all about May 25
The word “maidan” means “square” in Ukrainian and in Arabic. And the “Independence Maidan” of Kyiv, like the “Tahrir Maidan” of Cairo, has been the scene of an awe-inspiring burst of democratic aspirations. The barricades of piled cobblestones, tires, wood beams and burned cars erected by Ukrainian revolutionaries are still there — indeed, it looks as if it could be the set of “Les Misérables” — and people still lay fresh flowers at the makeshift shrines for the more than 100 people killed in the Maidan by the old and now deposed regime here.