Ukraine Salutes Slain Euromaidan Activists On Fifth Anniversary Of Uprising

President Petro Poroshenko has headed a delegation of top Ukrainian officials marking the fifth anniversary of the start of the Euromaidan protests that began a series of events that tilted Ukraine's geopolitical orientation toward the West.

Poroshenko took part in a ceremony on Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) on November 21 to commemorate activists killed during three months of peaceful protests in 2013-14 that prompted Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych to flee to Russia.

Poroshenko was joined by Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman and parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy at the Heroes Of The Heavenly Hundred memorial on the square where many of the some 100 activists were killed, most by security forces.

In the weeks following Yanukovych's ouster, Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and supported separatist forces who took control of parts of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions, setting off a war that has killed more than 10,300 people.

November 21 is officially known as Prosperity and Freedom Day in Ukraine to mark the start of the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013-14 Euromaidan uprising.

The day was known as Freedom Day from 2005 to 2011 but canceled while Yanukovych was president. Poroshenko reinstated it after becoming president in 2014.