US Vice President Joe Biden has arrived in Kyiv. He will hold a bilateral meeting on Friday with Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk followed by a working lunch with President Poroshenko. It’s understood he will present a package of non-lethal aid for Ukraine.<br /><br />The discussions will take place to the backdrop of the first anniversary of the Maidan protests. Candles will be lit in the morning ahead of a planned ceremony in the evening.<br /><br />The president and prime minister will lay a wreath to commemorate those who died in clashes, estimated at over one hundred.<br /><br />Two residents reflected on the events in Maidan: “It is the awakening of consciousness of Ukrainians, the unity of the nation and I hope the birth of the nation. But we cannot relax. There is a lot of work ahead of us,” said one while another added: “I think that any slogans are very superficial, because something has changed dramatically inside us. We will never be the same as we were before.”<br /><br />Small protests erupted in Maidan on November 21 last year after the country’s then president Victor Yanukovych abandoned an agreement to forge closer ties with the European Union. <br /><br />Demonstrators also rallied as MPs rejected a bill that would have allowed jailed former President Yulia Tymoshenko to leave Ukraine.
