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This is a really bad cliche by now. Putin represents a moderate faction within Russia compared to the hardliners who wanted to invade 10 years ago after Maidan. Putin did not single-handedly launch the war (if one single man is reaponsible, it would probably be Strelkov). And Putin is not irrational for feeling threatened by NATO and the US.
Its worse than a bad cliche, and I've been stunned as an observer on this site, how many of the more intellectually minded people seem to fall victim to thinking in the same platitudes a standard ignoramus who doesn't even watch the news does. The problem with the above style of comments is that it fails to take geopolitics seriously and fails to understand alternative viewpoints. If it wasn't Putin, any other Russian leader would be beset with the same scenario and conditions.
If it wasn't Zelensky, any other Ukrainian leader would be beset with the same scenario and conditions.
If it wasn't Biden, any other American leader would be beset by the same scenario and conditions.
Are we pretending Yanukovych wasn't overthrown?
"Presidents come and go but the policies remain the same." - Vladimir Putin
Are we pretending Yanukovych wasn't fleeing the country rather than being procedurally removed from office for granting himself the authority to shoot not only the supporters of his political opponents but also the supporters of his unity government partners that he brought into his own government, at the direct pressure of the foreign government that he fled to after his own party loyalists didn't want to conduct a bloodbath?
And are we going to pretend that giving yourself authority to shoot political opponents in the streets without legislative support wouldn't drive legislature retaliation against an Executive clearly bowing to foreign government pressure and incentives?
I am as familiar with the Yanukovych coup narratives as you, and probably a bit more familiar with various political events during Euromaidan, including the ever-handy reference to the conspiracy theory that the US Ambassador discussing candidates for Yanukovych's invitation for a unity government and considering people who could work with Yanukovych and others was actually plotting a coup against the person who she was going to discuss the candidate list with in the coming days.
Perhaps you'd like to raise the protestor-sniper theories that justified the claim to shoot-to-kill authorities, which I might counter with the state sniper evidence and various security service suspect defections to Russia in the investigations after? Or perhaps you want to make the position that the protestors had no right to protest against the sovereign right of the government to join the Eurasian Union economic association, after Yanukovych made a rather abrupt about face on the already-sovereign-agreed to European Union association agreement that was followed by Russian pressure and incentive campaigns? Maybe you'd like to retreat to the defense of Eastern Russo-phile suppression of the Russian speakers, who were so uninterested in joining in the Russian novarussia campaign that the Russian millitary had to directly intervene to keep the separatist republics from collapsing?
Come now, there's so much history we can banter on!
I don't know how well read you are on the history of what happened...
Seems we both agree at the outset that he was democratically elected, do we not? His overthrow was explicitly supported by the US and it's allies. Are you not aware that there was even leaked audio of Victoria Nuland and the Ukraine's Ambassador that revealed deliberate planning of his overthrow? NATO was never a European alliance of 'peace', it's an alliance that's aimed at destabilizing Eastern Europe, with the intention to weaken Russia. Do forgive a homie for challenging American
imperialismunipolarity. This whole quagmire has absolutely zero to do with high minded moral idealism against the Next Hitler, who at the same time the media tells us is losing, running out of gas, is out of ammunition, is incompetent beyond belief; and simultaneously is preparing for world domination and his next target is going to be Poland or Scandinavia. It has everything to do with continued projecting of American and western geopolitical dominance across the planet.Ah, I see we are going to play the pretend we don't know game, such as--
-that US support for Yanukovych stepping down followed Yanukovych starting to process of shooting protestors in the streets with government snipers.
Oh, hey, called it-
Come now, we can go over the transcripts if you'd like. We can even go over Yanukovych's invitation for the opposition to join the government, which was the basis of Nuland's discussions of who would actually work well within Yanukovych's government which- again- was invited and being discussed in the context of Yanukovych running it.
While this certainly nails your flag high, it doesn't really establish your awareness with Euromaiden-
-or that, as far as challening American imperialism unipolarity, Ukraine was such an own-goal by Russia.
Yawn. Like I said, I'd rather you build a competent historical metaphor, not your naval gazing. If your media is telling us Putin is Next Hitler, or running out of gas, or out of ammunition, pick better media, not other trash.
It should also be remembered that the guys that Nuland and Pyatt were talking about - Yatsenyuk - was one of the main leaders of the main opposition party and had already been offered the PMs post by Yanuk as a compromise, making him the most natural leader to take this post after Yanuk and PoR had vacated power.
It's not like they just picked some guy out of nowhere to make him their puppet, the main thrust of the Nuland call was that they wanted to keep Klitchko and Tyahnubok marginalized since the first was too close to the Europeans and the latter was far-right (something that the pro-Russians never seem to mention - the US explicitly wanted to make sure the far right does not get too much power, something that doesn't fit in the idea of US gunning for Banderites to turn Ukraine into Banderastan).
The Nuland call is not inconsequential since it's evidence that EU should operate on its own and not just rely on the US, surely an important message to this day, but it's not by itself evidence that the entire Euromaidan sequence was just due to string-pulling by Americans with Ukrainians having no agency.
True, but perhaps not in the way many think.
Ironically, one of the back-channel complaints from the US in that time was a frustration with the Germans in particular for doing so much to set conditions for Euromaidan, but then dropping the ball and refusing to take any leadership role in negotiations on behalf of Europe despite being one of the key backers of the foundational infrastructure of Euromaidan politics (as in, the EU-funded networks that the US was also supporting). US policy in Ukraine before Euromaidan was basically supporting the European Union's association and social movement efforts, and the key driver and funder of that was the Germans, who had invested heavily in the Ukrainian media space and elsewhere in the decades leading up to it. For the Germans Ukraine was an economic interest and part of their post-Soviet soviet space influence links, and the US was supporting the European desire because why not.
There was a dynamic of that the US was frustrated not because the Europeans wouldn't align with the US, but that there wasn't a coherent European position for the US to align itself with, due to the Germans dropping their previous lead and distancing themselves from the Euromaidan architecture they'd set up. Between the German whip lash and the lack of European consensus, Nuland took steps in a relative void where the Germans had turned self-sabotaging and the Russians were attempting various spoiler efforts to keep the Ukrainians from associating with the EU.
Had the EU operated on its own- which is to say, had the EU actually operated on a consistent position and been willing to stand by its previous decade of messaging- Nuland would likely have been known as little more than a European backer.
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