Over 9 Years of Proxy War in Ukraine
Once again, Ukraine is in the news. I highly recommend everyone listen to all three parts of Crawdads and Taters’ coverage of Ukraine for more background on the conflict. This article barely touches the surface of what Erin McCarley and I cover in the podcast. We have both spent hundreds of hours researching Ukraine for these episodes. If you enjoy the podcast, please share! It’s been highly suppressed on social media.
How the War Started
The war in Ukraine did not start on February 24, 2022. It was not an unprovoked invasion by the unhinged madman Putin. No matter how many times the establishment politicians and mainstream corporate media repeat these lies, the facts are out there and are not hard to find.
The war started with the US backed, Nazi led Maidan coup that culminated in February 2014. This was eight years before the “unprovoked” invasion that we hear so much about. The democratically elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, was illegally removed from his position. This was a coup - not a popular revolution.
Multiple polls taken during the protests show that they did not have popular support in Ukraine. A poll by Research and Branding group taken in December 2013 found that:
Ukrainians are divided into almost two equal camps in their attitude to Kyiv Euromaidan: 50% of Ukrainians don't support Euromaidan, while 45% have the opposite position….
Regarding the forecast of Euromaidan future, 43% of citizens said that its consequences sooner could be negative, while 31% of the respondents thought the opposite. Besides, 17% said that the Euromaidan would bring no negative consequences.
Another poll, by the pro-Maidan publication Kyiv Post, taken in January 2014 had similar results:
About 45% of Ukrainians support the demonstrations in favor of Ukraine's closer relations with Europe, known as Euromaidan, while 48% do not support them and 7% are undecided, a poll of 2,600 respondents conducted in Ukraine on January 17-30 has shown….
Asked about the reasons why some people do not support the protests, 50% mentioned mistrust in the opposition leaders, 39% rejection of radical forms of protest, 33% concerns about economic stability, and 26% frustration with politics as such.
At the same time, 45% of those polled fully or partially supported the Ukrainian president’s and the government’s decision to postpone the signature of an association agreement and a free trade area between Ukraine and the European Union, 42% disapproved of it, and 13% are undecided.
Any media portrayals of Maidan as a popular revolution against a corrupt pro-Russian leader are denying the actual opinions of Ukrainians at the time. It is likely that without US interference, the protests would not have resulted in regime change.
The US interference in the Maidan coup was not covert. It was open for everyone to see. On December 16, 2023, Business Insider, which is owned by a German corporation and based out of New York, not Russia, published an article titled “John McCain Went To Ukraine And Stood On Stage With A Man Accused Of Being An Anti-Semitic Neo-Nazi.” McCain was joined by Democratic Senator Chris Murphy on the stage at the Maidan alongside neo-Nazi Svoboda leader Andriy Tyahnybok.
It would later come out in a leaked call between then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt that the US wanted Yatsenyuk to head up the new government with Tyahnybok and his far right neo-Nazi Svoboda party working from the outside.
Nuland: [Breaks in] I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the... what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week, you know. I just think Klitsch going in... he's going to be at that level working for Yatseniuk, it's just not going to work.
It is not a coincidence that Yatsenyuk was appointed head of the interim government. He was their guy after all.
During the coup, Barack Obama was president, but it was his Vice President, Joe Biden, who was the point man. From the leaked call:
Pyatt: No, exactly. And I think we've got to do something to make it stick together because you can be pretty sure that if it does start to gain altitude, that the Russians will be working behind the scenes to try to torpedo it. And again the fact that this is out there right now, I'm still trying to figure out in my mind why Yanukovych (garbled) that. In the meantime there's a Party of Regions faction meeting going on right now and I'm sure there's a lively argument going on in that group at this point. But anyway we could land jelly side up on this one if we move fast. So let me work on Klitschko and if you can just keep... we want to try to get somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing. The other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych but we probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place.
Nuland: So on that piece Geoff, when I wrote the note [US vice-president's national security adviser Jake] Sullivan's come back to me VFR [direct to me], saying you need [US Vice-President Joe] Biden and I said probably tomorrow for an atta-boy and to get the deets [details] to stick. So Biden's willing
Biden was very willing. He had been overseeing the operation since the beginning. On December 9, 2013, he talked to Ukrainian President Yanukovych. The official readout of this call says:
The Vice President reaffirmed the strong support of the United States for Ukraine’s European aspirations and welcomed President Yanukovych’s commitment to maintaining this path. He underscored the close alignment of the United States and the European Union, and welcomed the upcoming visits of EU High Representative Catherine Ashton and State Department Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland to Kyiv.
Victoria Nuland gave a speech on December 13 at the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation Conference. In it she clarified exactly what Biden was referring to:
Later that same day, I spent more than two hours with President Yanukovych. It was a tough conversation, but also a realistic one. I made absolutely clear to him on behalf of the United States that what happened December 10th and more generally what’s been happening in security terms is absolutely impermissible in a European state, in a democratic state.
But I also made clear that the United States believes there is a way out for Ukraine, that it is still possible to save Ukraine’s European future, and that that is where we wanted to see the president lead his country.
That was going to require immediate steps to deescalate the security situation and immediate political steps to end the crisis and get Ukraine back into a conversation with Europe and the International Monetary Fund.
She goes on to say:
As Vice President Biden said in remarks last night, President Yanukovych has a choice. He can choose the path that leads to division and isolation or he can take a leap and take immediate tangible steps to diffuse his country’s crisis and start a genuine dialogue with the opposition and agree on a path that returns Ukraine to economic and political health.
This reads very much like an ultimatum - get behind the US demands or else. It is very clear that the US was deeply involved in Ukrainian politics at this time. And their involvement goes back further than that, as Nuland admitted:
Since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, the United States has supported Ukrainians as they build democratic skills and institutions, as they promote civic participation and good governance, all of which are preconditions for Ukraine to achieve its European aspirations. We’ve invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine.
It is easy to see the US fingerprints all over the Maidan. Even with Nuland, McCain, and Murphy’s assistance, the protests were not ultimately successful until after snipers murdered upwards of 100 protesters and police. The deaths of protesters were immediately blamed on Yanukovych and the state police, the Berkut. But it has since been revealed that they were actually carried out by Right Sector snipers - agents provocateurs. The most complete study of this was done by Ivan Katchanovski and was titled “The ‘Snipers' Massacre’ on the Maidan in Ukraine.” Some of the first evidence was revealed in a call between Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton.
"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.
The full call can be found on YouTube (age restricted content):
Simply put, it was neo-Nazi snipers murdering both protesters and police that resulted in the final push to oust Yanukovych. And the United States had no problem with taking advantage of these murders to install their own puppet government. The war in Ukraine began with the Maidan coup, not with Putin’s special military operation that started a year ago. The events of today are tied to the history of Ukraine and it is the United States that is to blame for this series of events and the deaths of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians.
This is not the story you will hear in the mainstream media. But as Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” It is not hard to find the facts if you are looking for them, but pundits for the corporate media are not paid to find the truth. They are paid to feed you propaganda that supports a narrative. Any true analysis of the conflict in Ukraine has to go back to the Maidan coup and how the US created this situation. An unholy alliance between the US state department and neo-Nazis created the war and lasts to this day.
Further reading:
Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault - The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin - John J. Mearsheimer
A US-Backed, Far Right–Led Revolution in Ukraine Helped Bring Us to the Brink of War - Branko Marcetic
The Ukraine Mess That Nuland Made - Robert Parry
The New Cold War and the Necessity of Patriotic Heresy - US fallacies may be leading to war with Russia. - Stephen Cohen
Anatomy of a Coup: How CIA front laid foundations for Ukraine war - Kit Klarenberg
How US-backed Maidan coup, Russiagate led to war in Ukraine - Aaron Mate
It's not Russia that's pushed Ukraine to the brink of war - Seumas Milne
The USA Caused the War in Ukraine, and Only the USA Can End It - Brian Davies
Thank you--good summary of the situation and its history.