Roman Ratushnyi, Ukrainian activist, 1997—2022

{"text":[[{"start":14.69,"text":"Roman Ratushnyi lived and died for just causes. "},{"start":18.082,"text":"As a teenager, the Ukrainian environmental and civic activist joined the Maidan pro-democracy and pro-western protests in Kyiv in 2013. "},{"start":25.999,"text":"He made his name defending a piece of woodland in the capital from illegal construction. "},{"start":30.542,"text":"On June 9, a few weeks before his 25th birthday, he was killed near Izyum, in the east of the country, while fighting for the Ukrainian army against Russian invaders. "}],[{"start":40.41,"text":"To his friends and fellow activists, Ratushnyi was an exemplar: principled, ethical and determined to change his country by standing up to abuses of power. "},{"start":49.277,"text":"He embodied the vitality of Ukrainian civil society, which has been such a strength in the country’s war effort. "}],[{"start":55.589999999999996,"text":"“Roman was the ideal example of the Ukrainian citizen,” says Nazarii Kravchenko, an entrepreneur and fellow civic activist. "},{"start":63.206999999999994,"text":"“For civil society he was an example of righteousness, uncorruptability and high ideals. ”"}],[{"start":69.42,"text":"Ratushnyi was born in Kyiv on July 5 1997 into a civically minded home. "},{"start":75.062,"text":"His father, Taras Ratushnyy, is a journalist and activist who campaigned to protect the capital’s heritage sites. "},{"start":81.504,"text":"His mother, Svitlana Povalyaeva, is a well-known Ukrainian writer. "},{"start":86.009,"text":"As a child he was taken by his parents to demonstrations. "}],[{"start":90.38,"text":"He took part in the Maidan protests against the government of Ukraine’s corrupt pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, who spurned an association agreement with the EU in favour of closer ties with Moscow. "},{"start":101.059,"text":"On November 30 2013, along with scores of other protesters he was beaten by the Berkut, the brutal riot police. "}],[{"start":108.34,"text":"Ratushnyi, then a law student, began a long campaign for legal redress which culminated in a 2021 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that his right to peaceful protest had been violated. "}],[{"start":120.10000000000001,"text":"In a 2018 account, Ratushnyi wrote that the Maidan revolution, which forced Yanukovych out of office, unleashed deep changes in Ukrainian society and political culture: “Without the Maidan, without the demonstration of real resistance to the authorities, these things would not exist. "},{"start":135.529,"text":"Now I feel completely free in this country. "},{"start":138.184,"text":"And I feel this country is my own. ”"}],[{"start":141.4,"text":"Ratushnyi next worked as an investigative journalist, uncovering stories of official malfeasance. "},{"start":147.12900000000002,"text":"But he came to prominence in 2019 leading a campaign to protect Protasiv Yar, a patch of hilly woodland with a small ski slope in his central Kyiv neighbourhood. "}],[{"start":156.6,"text":"Residents were furious when a property company owned by businessmen allied to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky began to clear the site for a residential complex — without proper permits but allegedly in cahoots with local officials. "},{"start":168.004,"text":"Ratushnyi set up a campaign group, mounted a legal challenge and organised demonstrations, which led to clashes with police. "},{"start":174.98399999999998,"text":"He also won over Vitali Klitschko, Kyiv’s mayor, to his cause. "}],[{"start":179.65,"text":"During one of many protests, he was arrested on what he said were trumped up charges of vandalism, later dismissed by an appeals court. "},{"start":187.042,"text":"He also claimed he received death threats over his action to save the site. "}],[{"start":191.42000000000002,"text":"The campaign took a heavy toll on Ratushnyi, Yevhen Cherepnya, a friend and fellow campaigner told Suspilne, a news outlet. "},{"start":199.174,"text":"“But Roman said ‘if you get down to business, you have to finish it’. ”"}],[{"start":203.69000000000003,"text":"And finish it he did, or so it seems. "},{"start":206.71900000000002,"text":"In January this year, after a three-year battle, Ukraine’s supreme court ruled against the developers. "}],[{"start":213.63000000000002,"text":"The following month, when Russia invaded, Ratushnyi immediately joined the volunteer territorial defence at the Kyiv front lines. "},{"start":220.98400000000004,"text":"He transferred to an army reconnaissance unit and took part in the celebrated battle to liberate Trostanyets, a town in the north-east, before redeploying further east to the Donbas. "}],[{"start":231.25000000000003,"text":"“The more Russians we kill now, the fewer Russians our children will have to kill,” he said in a tweet, which Twitter deleted after it was widely shared following his death. "}],[{"start":240.81000000000003,"text":"This tirade laid bare the animus some Ukrainians, even civic-minded ones, now feel towards their Russian tormentors. "}],[{"start":248.64000000000004,"text":"Every dead Ukrainian soldier is a loss to the country, but Ratushnyi was special. "}],[{"start":254.34000000000003,"text":"“Yesterday, like many, I cried,” Vakhtang Kipiani, the editor of Historical Truth, a news outlet to which Ratushnyi bequeathed money, wrote on Facebook. "},{"start":264.29400000000004,"text":"“Roman Ratushnyi was my personal hope for change in the city and the country. "},{"start":268.499,"text":"The Russians killed this hope. ”"}],[{"start":270.32000000000005,"text":""}]],"url":"https://creatives.ftacademy.cn/album/74645-1655536173.mp3"}