DISINFO: US behind 2014 Ukrainian Nazi coup d'état which led to a bloody civil war
SUMMARY
The Ukrainian crisis began in 2014 when there was a coup d'état in Kyiv organised by the United States and the Ukrainian ultranationalist and Nazi far-right, which intended to bring the country into NATO and anti-Russian circles. Russian-inhabited regions in the south and east rebelled and were attacked by right-wing Ukrainian militias, starting a bloody civil war.
At first the Russians were very cautious and sought an agreement that seemed to have been reached with the mediation of Chancellor Merkel in Minsk. These agreements, which provided for autonomy for the eastern regions although within the Ukrainian state, were never respected by the government in Kyiv.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the 2013-14 protests in Kyiv portrayed as a coup d'état led by US and Ukrainian Nazis, about the civil war in Ukraine claiming that Ukraine refused to implement the Minsk agreements and attacked the so-called republics.
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 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.
Russian propaganda has put tremendous effort to deceive the whole world by disguising its military aggression in eastern Ukraine. One of the borderline cynical and most frequently used myths is covering Russia’s invasion, occupation and war crimes as the civil war in Ukraine.
The conflict in Donbas is not a civil war but an act of Russian aggression.
Donetsk and Lugansk are internationally recognised parts of Ukraine, currently under partial Russian occupation.
Contrary to the claims, the main impediment to a peace settlement in Donbas was, in fact, Russia’s and its proxies’ deliberate unwillingness to implement the Minsk agreements. These documents, signed by representatives of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Ukraine, Russia and leaders of the illegal separatist entities (DNR and LNR), provide, among other things, for a comprehensive ceasefire and withdrawal of foreign troops from Ukraine. Kyiv announced a truce in July 2020, but the Moscow-backed separatists have violated it virtually every day before the invasion.
Read similar cases claiming that A violent coup d’état took place in Ukraine in 2014, that Kyiv refused to implement the Minsk agreements and conducted a genocide in Donbas and that the West supported neo-Nazis in Ukraine, using them to weaken Russia.