russia had paid for his political rise and for his political party. they had worked to install him in power. they totally controlled him. he was their guy. that was how russia controlled ukraine. they controlled the ukrainian president. they installed him in power and told him what to do and he did it. and russia, of course, didn t want ukraine to have better economic ties to the west. they didn t want ukraine to have any ties to the west. they wanted ukraine to only be tied to russia. and so when ukraine had the opportunity to sign on to this pro-european trade deal, russia didn t want him to do it and russia s guy in ukraine, this very corrupt, very compromised pro-russian president said he wouldn t sign that trade deal with europe. he said instead he would sign a knew one with russia. people in ukraine did not want that. they wanted to stop looking east. they wanted to look west instead. so in response they started protesting. in november of 2013. and a few months into it,
here. it is presidents day today, february 20th. presidential historian gonna be with us tonight. she s gonna be with us here live very very much looking forward to that conversation. but it was on this date, which won february 20th in 2014 when the group they call the heavenly hundred was killed. it was actually 118 people, call them the heavenly hundred. the youngest of them was just 16 years old. the oldest of them was 83 years old. it all happened as the culmination of protests that had started the previous november, people were protesting in ukraine. because the government of that country had had the chance to sign on to a big trade deal with europe. a deal that was expected to have big economic benefits for ukraine, it was definitely something that would bring ukraine closer to europe. closer to the west. people in ukraine frothy war, really looking forward to. it this is a popular thing they very much wanted it. but the president of ukraine at the time decided he was
where it was shipped. this is cnn. live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom. with kim brunhuber. u.s. president joe biden has arrived in japan after a three-day visit to south korea. air force one landed at the air base near tokyo, an hour ago to visit biden s first trip to asia as commander in chief. before leaving seoul, biden met the leader of hyundai. where he s tried to put focus on bolstering s america s security ties. the shadow of potential conflict is never far away. on saturday, the u.s. announced plans to expand military drills in response to north korea s nuclear threat. and how it can help to counter china s influence in the region. for more on that let s bring in blake essig and kevin liptak live in tokyo. kevin, a lot to get through with biden s first trip to asia. walk us through the second leg. reporter: yeah, trere really three components to this second leg of president biden s first trip to asia. the first is the u.s./japan relations. that s reall
the country next door. russia, of course, in 2014 soon invaded krup and started taking over parts of that country by forceful parts of eastern ukraine and crimea. ukrainians, meanwhile, started learning about how exactly their pro-russia puppet leader had been living while he had been in charge. they knew he was corrupt. that s part of what they were protesting against. but after he was gone they found his private zoo that he secretly kept for himself. they found his gold toilets carved to look lick they had animal feet, which is super creepy. they found his secret car collections. they found his private restaurant on a boat that was made to look like a spanish galleon that he used to float around on in a private lake that he had made for himself. at taxpayer expense. at the time, what seemed like just a bizarre american