KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — The clock over Kiev’s protest encampment showed 4:40 a.m. and minus-19 C (minus-2 F). Despite the brutal conditions, Alexander Kravchuk laughed lightly about how he’d ended up standing guard at a first-aid point thrown together with tents and rough planks.

“I came here for a couple of days, and now it’s two months,” he said, his chin tucked into his thick coat’s collar on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, the focal point and symbol of Ukraine’s opposition protests.