It is exactly 21 years since the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, when citizens rose up to challenge the result of an election scarred by corruption, fraud, vote-rigging and the mysterious poisoning of the main reformist candidate. This uprising is widely seen as a failure since it led to a dismal and divided government, followed by the election six years later of the chief villain Viktor Yanukovych. And it was this creep’s later attempt to return the country into Kremlin arms that sparked new protests, the annexation of Crimea and start of the grisly war that still torments our continent.

Yet the Orange Revolution was a pivotal moment in European history. It was the culmination of the revolt that started a quarter of a century earlier in the shipyards of Gdansk in Poland, when repressed people rose up to shake off the shackles of Moscow’s brutal imperialism, reassert national identities and embrace democracy. And it was a clear rebuff to Vladimir Putin, whose propaganda machinery pushed Yanukovych and had even visited Ukraine to tell voters to back his candidate.

Nine years later the Russian president’s stooge ditched the signing of an accession deal with the European Union – a move that provoked fresh protests, Yanukovych’s fall and the Kremlin’s subsequent theft of Crimea and parts of the Donbas.

Behind these turbulent events lies the desire of people to live in the freedom that we take for granted in the complacent west of Europe, rather than being ruled by a corrupt foreign dictatorship. These uprisings were driven by ideals of democracy, prosperity and the rule of law, similar to the vision that fuelled Spain’s rebirth after the death of a fascist........

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