DISINFO: The West created an anti-Russian and neo-Nazi Ukraine
SUMMARY
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US and European countries contributed to the formation of anti-Russian and neo-Nazi sentiments in Ukraine, supported the Orange Revolution in 2004, and promised Kyiv NATO membership in 2008. And in 2014, with the sponsorship of the West, an anti-constitutional coup was carried out.
RESPONSE
Recurring disinformation narrative from pro-Kremlin outlets accusing Ukraine and its foreign partners of Russophobia. It is a part of a broader narrative claiming that Ukraine is a Nazi state and a Western puppet. This claim was made in the context of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
There was neither a coup nor a western orchestrated and sponsored protest in Ukraine in 2014. 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 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 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.
Learn more about the reasons behind the Kremlin's obsession with framing Ukraine as a Nazi state in the EUvsDisinfo analysis titled "Why does Putin portray himself as the tamer of neo-Nazism".
Ukraine is fighting for its independence and sovereignty. The Western countries did not declare war on Russia and are not at war with Russia or the Russians. Not only Western, but many other states support 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.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that Ukrainians continue to die for the Kyiv regime in order to revive national socialism, that With the Orange Revolution in Ukraine the West was preparing for a military conflict with Russia, that In 2014 there was a bloody coup in Ukraine followed by the Kyiv regime's war against its own people in Donbas, that Euromaidan was a foreign-sponsored violent coup, that Maidan protests led to a coup and rise of Nazi sentiments in Ukraine, or that Europe took an active part in the creation of a neo-Nazi anti-Russian state in Ukraine.