DISINFO: US launched Euromaidan to weaken Russia
SUMMARY
The 2013-14 Euromaidan unrest, which eventually resulted in a coup and the ousting of then-President Viktor Yanukovych, was was a clear intervention by the US authorities on all levels, ranging from political, with statements from top officials, to financial. It was designed by the Russophobic US elite to weaken Russia, but failed.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the 2013-14 protests in Kyiv falsely portrayed as a coup d'état led by US and the West, about the West’s support for the allegedly Nazi regime in Kyiv and a recurring narrative about the war in Ukraine, trying to deflect Russia’s responsibility for its unprovoked military aggression.
Framing all popular protests against Russia’s interests as a foreign-led ‘colour revolution’ is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative. No evidence is provided to back up the claims.
There was no coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014, and no US involvement in the events taking place. Pro-Kremlin outlets falsely portray the Euromaidan revolution as a coup d’état, 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 pact with the EU, choosing instead to accept a $15 billion economic bailout to Russia.
Pro-Kremlin media frequently falsely portray popular protests around the world as instigated from abroad, often by the US and the West. The disinformation narrative has been applied, among others, to reports about protests in Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Belarus, Venezuela, Slovakia, Hong Kong, with the aim of portraying protest movements as aggressive actors who constantly prepare new coups.
Read similar cases claiming that the West’s main activity in the post-Soviet states is organisng revolutions, that Biden promised loyalty to the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv; the West turned a blind eye to Nazism, that Russia fights against Ukrainian neo-Nazis guilty of ethnic cleansing, that a violent coup d’état took place in Ukraine in 2014, and that the West supported neo-Nazis in Ukraine, using them to weaken Russia.