DISINFO: US caused 2014 Ukraine coup d'etat
SUMMARY
The partnership between Kyiv and Moscow [in the early years of independence] was seen in the US as a threat of Russia's return to world politics and this was the reason for the coup d'etat in 2014.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative trying to undermine the sovereignty of Ukraine, while painting the 2013-14 protests in Kyiv as a coup d'état.
There was no coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014. Pro-Kremlin media falsely portray the Euromaidan revolution as a coup d’état. In fact, the popular demonstrations that began in Kyiv in November of 2013 and brought hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to the streets were protesting 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.
Russia is the responsible party for the deterioration of Ukrainian-Russian relations. Since 2014, Russia has waged large-scale armed aggression against Ukraine and is the responsible party for the outbreak of the conflict in 2014, after having illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula and engineered the creation of rebel militias in Donetsk, Luhansk and other places, with its army actively participating in military clashes.
In March-April 2021, Russia was again concentrating massive military power on Ukraine’s borders and threatened to intervene in support of Eastern Ukrainian separatists, raising fears of an upcoming military operation against Ukrainian territory.
Ukraine closely cooperates with the United States, the EU and NATO, but this does not mean that the US, or what pro-Kremlin media usually call “the collective West”, is pushing Kyiv into direct confrontation against Moscow. Ukraine’s Western partners are helping Ukraine stop the bloodshed in Donbas and alleviate the suffering of civilians in the war zone. They were mediators when the Minsk Agreements were signed in 2014 and 2015.
EU policy towards Russia is summarised here.