DISINFO: The West abandoned diplomacy after the 2014 coup
SUMMARY
After the 2014 coup in Ukraine, the West abandoned diplomacy and did its best to cover up for the Kyiv regime, which has openly embraced Russophobia as a fundamental policy to destroy everything Russian, including the Russian language, education and media.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the 2013-14 protests in Kyiv, falsely portraying them as a coup d'état led by US and the West, about the West’s support for the allegedly Nazi regime in Kyiv and accusing Ukraine's government of Russophobia. All these narratives aim to deflect Russia’s responsibility for its unprovoked military aggression.
There was no coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014. The popular demonstrations that began in Kyiv in November 2013 and brought hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians on 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 pact 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.
Ukraine is not Russophobic and does not oppress or suppress those of its citizens who belong to Russian culture. Ethnic Russians, who comprise approximately 17 per cent of its overall population, enjoy the same rights as other Ukrainian citizens regardless of their ethnic origin. Articles 10 and 11 of the Constitution guarantee the free development of the languages and cultures of Ukraine’s ethnic minorities. Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations make it closer to European democratic values. European values suppose respect for the rights of all citizens. Ukrainian law does not forbid the use of Russian nor any other languages in private communication and religious ceremonies, as well as in book publishing, the press, including radio and television, education and the service sector.
Furthermore, Ukraine is a signatory to the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, which guarantees that people in Ukraine have the right: "to use freely and without interference his or her minority language, in private and in public, orally and in writing."
It is not true that Western countries abandoned diplomacy, as the Minsk agreements prove. Russia’s supposed proposals of “strategic security treaties” and “peaceful coexistence” released on the 17 December 2021 were considered by the West as unacceptable demands that denied the sovereignty of the countries that Moscow deemed in its “sphere of influence”. However, both the US and the European Union were open to continue discussing Russia’s concerns and maintaining a dialogue on ways to strengthen the security of all. Instead, Russia opted to invade a peaceful neighbouring country.
Read similar cases claiming that a violent coup d’état took place in Ukraine in 2014, that the EU supported an unconstitutional coup d'état in Ukraine led by the US, that Russophobia is a long-term Anglo-Saxon project aimed at destroying Russia and that Kyiv oppresses Russian culture at the West’s command.