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Ukraine 2014

There is no evidence that America was directly involved in the process of forceful or unconstitutional change of power in Kyiv in 2014. There is evidence that America actively supported this process. These two phenomena are not identical, not equivalent. The US-funded National Endowment for Democracy ( NED ) said in a report that the grants they issued played an important role in the initial stage of the Euromaidan in Kiev in 2013-2014. According to the Foundation’s annual report published in 2015, over 4 years (from 2011 to 2014) NED allocated almost $14 million to support Ukrainian non-profit organizations, and the Mass Media Institute, which is part of NED, played an active role in the Maidan events. But these inputs are fairly trivial compared to those from the Ukrainian people themselves.

The first Maidan protest took place in 2004 when European officials declared for the first time that Ukraine had to choose sides and decide who it was with, the West or Russia. Since then, this either/or approach has been consistently promoted by the West in its policies in this region. Those who chose the wrong side or believed that their historical and family ties, and their traditions and religious beliefs bonded them with the Russian Federation (even though they lived in Ukraine), were more or less delicately ground down.

Russians raise a number of questions around America's role in the 2014 coup in Ukraine, when the democratically elected president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted, following a series of violent protests.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland is wife of Professor Kagan, a Yale graduate with a master's degree in political science and international relations from Harvard University; Kagan was an adviser to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, and served as U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 2005 to 2008; now lives in Brussels.

On December 11, 2013 Nuland defiantly handed out cookies to the protesters on the Maidan. She was accompanied by US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. Victoria Nuland met with Viktor Yanukovych. She stated that the methods used to disperse the protesters were unacceptable. Following the meeting, Nuland said that Ukraine has a chance to return to the path of European integration, and that she wanted Yanukovych to move in this direction and that he resume negotiations with the IMF.

The US Senator John McCain was in Kiev during the start of the unrest. A leading Republican voice on US foreign policy, McCain told thousands of Ukrainian protesters camped on Kiev's main square in December 2013: "We are here to support your just cause, the sovereign right of Ukraine to determine its own destiny freely and independently. And the destiny you seek lies in Europe."

Vice President Biden called Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych January 23, 2014 to urge an immediate de-escalation in the standoff between protesters and security forces in downtown Kyiv. The Vice President urged President Yanukovych to take steps to end violence and to meaningfully address the legitimate concerns of peaceful protesters, stressing the importance of the ongoing dialogue with the opposition and the need for genuine compromise as the only solution to the crisis. While emphasizing that violence by any side is not acceptable, the Vice President underscored that only the government of Ukraine can ensure a peaceful end to the crisis and further bloodshed would have consequences for Ukraine’s relationship with the United States. Vice President Biden encouraged President Yanukovych to find a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

On 04 February 2014 a leaked phone conversation between then US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt and US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland hinted at extensive involvement. They spoke about the need to "midwife this thing" and said Ukrainian politician Arseniy Yatsenyuk was "the guy", shortly before he became prime minister. During the conversation, Nuland expressed support for the idea of ??making Arseniy Yatsenyuk prime minister of Ukraine. The European protege Vitali Klitschko, in her opinion, should not enter the government. Nuland told Pyatt that she enlisted the support of the UN to "teach the EU a lesson".

The recording indicated that the Americans were in direct contact with the leaders of the Ukrainian opposition and are negotiating with them. It is also evident that they did not fully understand why Yanukovych offered seats in the government to Yatsenyuk and Klitschko and what is happening inside the Party of Regions. Nuland later acknowledged the authenticity of the recording, apologizing to European diplomats for making a rude statement about the European Union (“Fuck the EU”) during the conversation. The US State Department and the White House suggested that the publication of the recording was the work of Russian intelligence.

Vice President Biden and President Yanukovych spoke by telephone February 20, 2014. The Vice President strongly condemned the violence against civilians in Kyiv. He called upon President Yanukovych to immediately pull back all security forces – police, snipers, military and paramilitary units, and irregular forces. The Vice President made clear that the United States is prepared to sanction those officials responsible for the violence. The Vice President urged President Yanukovych to take immediate and tangible steps to work with the opposition on a path forward that addresses the legitimate aspirations of the Ukrainian people. The Vice President underscored that the United States supports an independent, democratic Ukraine that pursues the future its people choose.

| The massacre of almost 50 Maidan protesters on February 20, 2014 was a turning point in Ukrainian politics and a tipping point in the conflict. The term "Maidan snipers" refers to the unidentified gunmen who fired on protesters and police during the Maidan protests in Kyiv, Ukraine, in February 2014. The exact identity of the snipers remains a topic of controversy and speculation. On February 20, 2014, a significant escalation occurred when sniper fire resulted in numerous deaths. The situation became more complex due to conflicting reports and narratives:

The interim Ukrainian government and many in the opposition initially claimed that the snipers were security forces loyal to President Yanukovych, attempting to suppress the protests. Russian officials and some pro-Russian sources suggested that the snipers might have been provocateurs working for the opposition to discredit Yanukovych's government and intensify the unrest.

Various independent investigations have been conducted, but the results have been inconclusive. Some suggested that the snipers may have been a mix of different groups with varying motivations, possibly including elements within the security forces and rogue actors. The Maidan sniper attacks contributed significantly to the escalation of violence and the eventual collapse of Yanukovych's government. However, the true identity and motives of the snipers remain one of the unresolved aspects of the Euromaidan protests.

This is all pretty thin gruel. The strongest case emerged from an 05 March 2014 audio recording of a conversation between the Estonian Foreign Minister and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton. From the conversation, in particular, it followed that "unknown snipers" worked on the same team as the militants, and that the self-proclaimed government took steps to destroy evidence of their work.

Officers of Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) loyal to the ousted President Viktor Yanukovich hacked phones of Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs Urmas Paet and High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton and leaked their conversation to the web 05 March 2014. The officials discuss their impressions of what's happening in the country after the revolution. The gist of it is that Ukrainian people have no trust in any of the leaders of Maidan. However the most striking thing was the fact which concerns the use of force during the revolution, particularly the snipers who killed both protesters and officers of the riot police.

On the first day the fighting began, on 18 February 2014, the center of Kiev was flooded with 1,500 wounded people. Ukrainian doctor Olga Bogomolets - “White Angel” as some injured defenders of the Maidan referred to her - tended to the wounded after snipers opened fire on protesters. Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet told EU's Cathy Ashton about the Maidan killings of police and civilians. Paet quoted Bogomolets relating that "What was quite disturbing, this same Olga told that, well, all the evidence shows that people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides," Paet said. "So she also showed me some photos, she said that as medical doctor, she can say it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it's really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don't want to investigate what exactly happened."

"So there is a stronger and stronger understanding that behind snipers it was not Yanukovych, it was somebody from the new coalition," Paet says. Ashton replies: "I think we do want to investigate. I didn't pick that up, that's interesting. Gosh," Ashton says. Russia Today, reporting the call, said: "The snipers who shot at protesters and police in Kiev were allegedly hired by Maidan leaders, according to a leaked phone conversation between the EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and Estonian foreign affairs minister, which has emerged online."

Paet's phrase "somebody from the new coalition", which some claimed revealed astonishing information which confirmd the rumours that the snipers were employed by the leaders of Maidan, is not substantiated by the facts in evidence. Bogomolets did not attribute the identiy of the snipers, only reporting that they seemed to be shooting in both directions. Possibly such a provocation was mounted by some faction of Right Sector, or by Russian Berkut forces.

In any event, Yanukovich fled the country on 22 February 2014. Yanukovych was not a "pro-Russian president". He was not even "pro-Ukrainian". Yanukovych cared too much about himself and his inner circle and too little about everyone else. That is why, at the most critical moment, the legitimately elected president had such a modest number of sincere defenders.

The head of the SBU under Yanukovych, Major General Alexander Yakimenko, spoke 21 March 2014 about who was behind the snipers on the Maidan. "All commands were given either from the US Embassy or from the EU Delegation by Mr. Tombinsky, who is a citizen of Poland. Here, the role of Poland is invaluable in that a coup took place. Poland sleeps and sees: to restore its positions and restore its old desire - the Commonwealth.... foreign currency appeared on the Maidan - US dollars of a new type, and this currency began to appear in the nearest exchange offices..."

On 27 March 2014 Olga Bogomolets, Ruslana Lyzhychko, and activists of EuroMaidan SOS called for an independent investigation into the tragic events in Kyiv, as well as commemoration of the “Heavenly Hundred” [the approximately 100 Maidan activists killed during the protests against the Yanukovych government]. After the uprising, she served as an advisor to the acting President of Ukraine, Oleksandr Turchynov, on humanitarian issues. In 2014, she ran for the presidency of Ukraine but did not win. She was then elected to the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) later that year. This career trajectory does not suggest she regarded the Maidan protests as the authors of the shiping.

The Kiev "Euromaidan" was claimed to have been inspired and orchestrated by the US authorities. This is alleged in a detailed journalistic investigation "Meet the Americans who organized the coup in Kyiv", an American publicist Steve Wiseman, who now lives and works in France. On 07 April 2014 he published the results of his work on the "second Orange Revolution" of the US State Department in the independent network resource Reader supported News. US work in this area was said to be coordinated and directed by the State Department, Wiseman points out, explaining that the Foreign Office assumed these functions after the exposure of CIA subversive operations "using private funds, including the Ford Foundation." Now "the CIA, the NSA and the Pentagon most likely provide their specialized services," but it is "the State Department that controls the main sources of funding for non-military intervention" in other people's affairs by the US, the author writes. He later calls the corresponding tools "non-military infrastructures oh American imperialism."

The components of this infrastructure, listed by Wiseman in relation to the events in Ukraine, are the National Endowment for Democracy with its party branches and centers, including the "Center for International Private Enterprise" and the "American Center for International Trade Union Solidarity"; the "much better funded" International Development Agency (USAID); US State Institute for Peace; and "a growing network of front groups, fronts and private contractors," including "nominally independent but mostly government-funded organizations like Freedom House."

On 01 February 2015 Fareed Zakaria interviewed President Barack Obama, who said Putin "was caught off-balance by the protests in the Maidan and Yanukovych then fleeing after we had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine — since that time, this improvisation that he’s been doing has getting — has gotten him deeper and deeper into a situation that is a violation of international law, that violates the integrity, territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine..." Hard to see who this amounts to a confession of an American coup.

Putin in the film "Crimea. The Way to the Motherland" said 15 March 2015 that the real "puppeteers" of the coup in Ukraine were the Americans : "The trick of the situation was that formally the opposition in Ukraine was primarily supported by the Europeans, but we knew very well that we were not just aware, but knew that our American friends were the real "puppeteers". It was they who helped to train the nationalists, combat detachments - in the west of Ukraine, and training took place in Poland, in Lithuania partly. How did our partners do? They contributed to the coup d'état."

On 03 April 2015, the Swiss weekly magazine Die Weltwoche has published an interview with former Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov. Azarov said "It's all obvious. You just need to turn to those events: in the heart of the European capital, armed gangs are storming administrative buildings. They even try to take over the government building. And all this is happening in front of the eyes of foreign parliamentarians and ministers. These politicians mixed with the rebels, shook hands with them, talked to them. The leaders of the rebels constantly visited the embassies of Western countries. There they received instructions. The Americans encouraged the rebels to act against the government so that the regime would fall. At the same time, the Americans told us that under no circumstances should we use violence."

Oliver Stone's movie "Ukraine on Fire" by Igor Lopatonok provides a historical perspective for the deep divisions in the region which lead to the 2004 Orange Revolution, 2014 uprisings, and the violent overthrow of democratically elected Yanukovych. Covered by Western media as a people's revolution, "Ukraine on Fire" claimes it was a coup d'état scripted and staged by nationalist groups and the US State Department. Investigative journalist Robert Parry reveals how U.S.-funded political NGOs and media companies emerged since the 1980s replacing the CIA in promoting America's geopolitical agenda abroad.

On December 16, 2016, a meeting of the Dorogomilovsky Court was held in Moscow on the suit of the former deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Volodymyr Oleinik to recognize the events in Ukraine in 2014 as a coup d'état. The former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine under Yanukovych, Vitaliy Zakharchenko, said that all the buildings from which snipers fired at people in Maidan were controlled by the rebels. According to the testimony of Andrei Klyuev (the former head of Yanukovych's administration), the direct organizers of the coup d'état in Ukraine were Alexander Turchinov, Andrei Parubiy and Sergei Pashinsky, and the US intelligence services were involved in the preparation.

On November 23, 2017 the Italian documentary "Ukraine, Hidden Truths" showed the confessions of Georgian snipers (Alexander Revazishvili, Koba Nergadze and Pledges of Kvaratskhelia) who said that they were hired by the Maidan Ukrainian opposition through Mamuka Mamulashvili, military adviser to Bacho Akhalai, the former Minister of War of Georgia under Saakashvili, and they were ordered to shoot as if in protest and by the police to sow panic.