Unnaturalness of the Ukrainian crisis

All Western politicians and all Western media say that the Ukrainian crisis allegedly began in the spring of 2014, when the Crimea became a part of the Russian Federation and fighting began in Donbas. But in reality, this crisis began in the fall of 2013. And, in my opinion, this crisis is a completely unnatural phenomenon.

The crisis started on 21 November 2013 after the decision of the then Ukrainian President Yanukovych to postpone signing the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement.

After this, protests began in the Ukrainian capital with demands to quickly sign this agreement; see below a  quote from The Guardian website.

(On 24 November 2013), several hundred protesters rushed to the government headquarters demanding the government's resignation and that of the presidential administration. People threw smoke bombs and stones at police and shouted "Revolution!" Opposition politicians tried to calm the crowd but without success. The police responded by deploying teargas.

And subsequently, at some point the protesters began to burn and kill.

But no one would burn and kill for the sake of such a trifle as a faster signing of some kind of agreement.

Violent protests usually occur in countries where there are dictatorial regimes, where there is no freedom of speech, where there are a lot of political prisoners, a lot of human rights violations, etc.

There was none of that kind in Ukraine in November 2013.

If Ukrainian citizens were not satisfied with delay in signing the Agreement, they could legally have elected another President in 15 months - in March 2015 - at the next presidential election.

However, the above mentioned protests received the full support of Western politicians.

At the end of January 2014, US President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address:

In Ukraine, we stand for the principle that all people have the right to express themselves freely and peacefully, and have a say in their country’s future.

First of all, throwing stones at police, burning and killing are in no circumstances a way “to express themselves peacefully”.

Secondly, suspension of signing an agreement is in no circumstances an act which can influence some country’s future.

For example, Georgia and Moldova, which did sign such Agreements with the EU in 2013, so far - that is, in June 2024 - have not become members of the EU.

It is the unnaturalness of the above-mentioned protests and the unnaturalness of Western support for these protests that force Western politicians and Western journalists to avoid mentioning the events that preceded the spring of 2014, that is, the events that preceded the admission of Crimea to the Russian Federation.

It was the begun violence which caused the Russian government to worry about the lives of ethnic Russians, who make up the majority in Crimea; see my article Was there a threat for ethnic Russians in February 2014 in Ukraine (Crimean question)?

But Western countries, which 15 years earlier were very concerned about protecting the Albanian population in Yugoslav Kosovo, condemned Russia in the spring of 2014 for its protection of the Russian population and have since begun supplying weapons to the Ukrainian government. This government started to openly threaten with military measures for the “reintegration of Crimea,” which, in my opinion, led to the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine; see my article Has the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine been provoked?

The unnaturalness of the Ukrainian crisis is also expressed in the fact that after the Ukrainian “democratic” revolution in February 2014 the situation in at least two spheres - in the sphere of rights of ethnic minorities and in the sphere of freedom of speech has become worse in Ukraine as compared with the situation before the “revolution”; see my articles What kind of a country is modern Ukraine? and Ukrainian laws on ethnic minorities.

But despite this, Ukrainian rulers receive full support from Western countries, although the governments of these countries constantly declare their commitment to protection of democratic rights throughout the world.