BREAKING POINTThe War for Democracy in Ukraine In November 2013, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych rejected a promised trade deal with the European Union. Students and journalists quickly assembled to protest on the Maidan, Kyiv’s Independence Square. The protests sparked a three-month revolution, which ended in the death of 123 protesters, the flight of President Yanukovych, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine, and a war that has killed 10,000 Ukrainians and displaced 1.9 million refugees. Fearing that this popular uprising could spread to Russia and threaten his own power and legitimacy, Vladimir Putin responded to the overthrow of Yanukovych by annexing Crimea, the most egregious land grab since the end of World War II. An invasion of Eastern Ukraine followed, a “hybrid war” of tanks and missiles, accompanied by an incredible propaganda and disinformation campaign. With no army to speak of, and no money in the treasury, millions of ordinary Ukrainians stepped up to defend their country and equip their volunteer soldiers. The film follows our central characters as they struggle to defeat the Russians and remake their own government. The outcome affects not only the future of Ukraine. As Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum says, “Ukraine has become a piece of a bigger struggle about the future of European democracy. Can democracy even survive into the 21st century?”