DISINFO: West started the Ukraine conflict by staging the 2014 Euromaidan coup
SUMMARY
Hostilities in Ukraine did not start with the launch of Russia's special military operation in 2022, but way before – in 2014. Western countries, who had acted as guarantors of an agreement between then-President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and the opposition, reneged and instead supported a coup d’état. The West started the conflict in the Donbas by proxy of the Kiev regime.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the 2013-14 protests in Kyiv portrayed as a coup d'état led by US, the West and Ukrainian Nazis.
There was no coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014, no US involvement in the events taking place. Pro-Kremlin outlets falsely portray as a coup d’état the Euromaidan revolution, the popular demonstrations that began in Kyiv in November of 2013 and brought hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to the streets to protest against a political decision of Viktor Yanukovych’s government, which at the last minute withdrew from a long-negotiated political association and free trade agreement with the EU, choosing instead to accept a $15 billion economic bailout to Russia.
The myth of Nazi-ruled Ukraine has been the cornerstone of Russian disinformation about the country since the very beginning of the 2013-14 Euromaidan protests, when it was used to discredit the pro-European popular uprising in Kyiv and, subsequently, the broader pro-Western shift in Ukraine's foreign policy. It has been widely addressed here.
The West did not declare war on Russia and is not at war with Russia or the Russians. The West supports Ukraine with military and financial aid for the country’s efficient self-defence, in accordance with the UN Charter Article 51, to stop Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.