> while Russia is responsible for invading, Victoria Nuland was caught red-handed orchestrating the Ukrainian coup/government that precipitated it
Fyi the leaked Nuland call (which I assume is what you're referring to), is of her discussing who they should support after the massive protests started and Yanukovych and his ministers left the country. She did not "orchestrate a coup". At most, it's the US trying to get Ukrainian parliament to pick the interim candidate they want which while is still manipulative, is far from "orchestrating a coup".
The call was leaked on the 4th of February (and apparently recorded on the 28th of January), Yanukovych fled on the 21st. The correct context is that negotiations were ongoing between Yanukovych and the Maidan organisations, with him offering Yatsenyuk the prime minister job on the 25th of January as part of a potential deal to end the protests.
It's a very tired canard to call it a coup, of course, but it's important to be accurate about these details.
Giving her support of a particular candidate is not "orchestrating" any coup. By that logic, the Democratic party giving support to Biden means the Democratic party enacted a coup on the US. Following the law of a country is not a coup.
In order for there to be a coup, there has to be an unlawful seizure of power and that never happened. The president and his ministers left. I assume because the unrest of the people was so massive, he expected there would be a revolution. That would have been a coup, but even giving her support to a particular candidate the revolutionaries put forward, is not her causing a coup. Giving the revolutionaries weapons would be causing a coup. Sparking the revolution would be causing a coup. Getting one part of the government to overthrow the controlling part would be a coup. She did none of those things though (as far as we know).
Facing the reality of having no president and having no line of succession remaining, the Ukrainian parliament selected an interim president for an interim government until a new, full president could be elected and that is what happened.
There's a relatively reasonable timeline of the coup available here. [1] And it was a coup in the most classical definition of the word. The military began refusing to carry out government orders, entire regional police departments were defecting to the protesters, cities were openly refusing to recognize the government, and so on. Had Yanukovych stayed, he would likely have been killed, with or without a Ceaușescu style kangaroo court.
And if you want to see the sparking of the coup, this [2] is a video of John McCain (who was working alongside Nuland) instigating and emboldening the protesters, "America is with you. Europe is with you. The destiny you seek lies in Europe!" At the same time this was happening, Nuland was on the ground with protesters, memed as 'handing out cookies.'
Try to imagine something comparable happening in America. Imagine America was a relatively weak nation, and you had e.g. leading politicians from China out there rallying the protesters in DC, telling them that "China is with you! The destiny you seek lies in China!" That is going to not only dramatically embolden the existing protesters, but also draw out people from everywhere in the country who start thinking 'this could be it.' And indeed it was "it."
I can see how it can be called a coup because of the protesters' violence and arguing that difference is pretty pedantic so I have no problem with that.
The main point I was making was in response to the person confidently claiming Nuland orchestrated the coup. I don't think the call shows evidence of that. They only talk about coordinating their support for a candidate.
> And if you want to see the sparking of the coup, this [2] is a video of John McCain (who was working alongside Nuland) instigating and emboldening the protesters, "America is with you. Europe is with you. The destiny you seek lies in Europe!" At the same time this was happening, Nuland was on the ground with protesters, memed as 'handing out cookies.'
I've seen this mentioned before. While I think it's clear who the US supported in this coup and the US was certainly trying to influence the situation, calling John McCain's speech three months before Yanukovych left, the sparking of the coup, is very disingenuous. That speech didn't cause the coup.
I could definitely see the US actually being behind the coup though. They've shamelessly done it countless times throughout history. It's just nothing out there so far is evidence of it.
The US would not have been in the ground riling up protesters if they thought the protests could organically overthrow their government, which was the US goal. It 'taints' the protesting by making it seem like it's just another US puppet protest. And it also makes a complete mockery of any efforts for us to make claims like 'foreign countries shouldn't interfere in the democratic process of other nations.' There is 0 doubt that Yanukovych was the legitimate democratically elected leader of Ukraine, but because he made interests that were not aligned with those of the US, of course it didn't matter.
Beyond this, I think you're also aware that if the US is sending people like McCain and Nuland to visibly rile up protesters, "we" were also doing far more behind the scenes, to make sure the coup could succeed. The number of protesters involved in the final attack on the Ukrainian Parliament was extremely small, relative to the earlier mass gatherings - numbering about 20,000 people. There was no real reason to think they would win, yet you had cities, police departments, and others openly and overtly defecting to the protesters, the military refusing to carry out orders and so on. That seems extremely unlikely to be organic, because if the protesters had failed overthrow Yanukovych, which one had every reason to think would be the case, then the defectors would have faced extremely severe consequences, up to and including charges of treason.
Oh there's also another funny little point. When the final charge on the parliament began, riot police managed to successfully scatter the first wave. Many protesters being pursued by riot police managed to evade them by taking shelter in... the Canadian Embassy. It's all about as organic as nuclear waste.
> The US would not have been in the ground riling up protesters if they thought the protests could organically overthrow their government, which was the US goal
The US can show their support for the protesters (if only to get them to think favorably of the US), regardless of whether or not they think the coup will work. It's not evidence they caused the coup.
I agree with the rest of that paragraph up until the last sentence:
> There is 0 doubt that Yanukovych was the legitimate democratically elected leader of Ukraine, but because he made interests that were not aligned with those of the US, of course it didn't matter.
I think the people of Kyiv are the cause of the coup, not the US.
The rest of your comment does not provide good evidence of the US causing the coup. Like I said before, it's clear who the US supported, but none of what you presented is good evidence toward the US causing the coup.
Unless you have evidence of a bribe, staging of protests, blackmail of officials, puppeteering of officials, attempted assassination of officials, government spy, some record of this plot, or some other good evidence along those lines directed toward causing the overthrow of the Ukrainian government, I don't think you can say the Ukrainian coup was orchestrated by the US.
...under threat of lethal violence. Their offices/residences were assaulted soon after they fled. Many people were murdered during the "protests". Is a "coup" really determined by whether the overthrown leader is nimble enough to evade arrest/murder?
> Giving her support of a particular candidate is not "orchestrating" any coup.
Please, let's be real. If Lavrov were caught saying things like "Trump should be President over Desantis. Let's keep Desantis out of government for now. Also let's be discreet about this. Putin is on board." and then all of that actually happened, like Desantis dropped out and endorsed Trump, what do you think the American reaction would be?
Some Americans even believe that something like this happened in 2016 ("Russiagate conspiracy theory"), but there is scant evidence to support it. In reality, Trump was impeached over far less evidence.
We can debate semantics over the preferred definition of coup, but the bottom line is there was extraordinarily blatant foreign interference in Ukraine's democratic process, and the US government clearly played a central role and achieved their goals.
I can see how it can be called a coup because of the protesters' violence and arguing that difference is pretty pedantic so I have no problem with that.
The main point I was making was in response to you confidently claiming Nuland orchestrated the coup. I don't think the call shows evidence of that. They only talk about coordinating their support for a candidate.
> If Lavrov were caught saying things like "Trump should be President over Desantis. Let's keep Desantis out of government for now. Also let's be discreet about this. Putin is on board." and then all of that actually happened, like Desantis dropped out and endorsed Trump, what do you think the American reaction would be?
If DeSantis dropped out because of Putin, it would be Russian influence again but on another level. Going to war level. DeSantis and Trump would be traitors and Russian co-conspirators, but I'm not sure if it would be a coup. Although I'm sure some would say that, the fact he was voted in would remain.
There is something to be said for manipulating the electoral process to a degree where it can't be called democratic, such as the situation in Russia at the moment where Putin's potential electoral opponents are jailed, killed, scared off, or oppressed to the point there is no other viable candidate to choose. So yes, I'd say there is a point where manipulating the democratic process prevents it from being fair and is unlawful and it could be considered a coup in that scenario, but I don't think the US meets that threshold here. Would you call every other leader selection process where the US has given their support for a candidate a coup? I agree it is wrong and shouldn't be done, but do you really think it qualifies as a coup?
The US caused a coup in Panama when it bombed their infrastructure, invaded, and took their leader under arrest. The US caused a coup in Iraq when it invaded. The US caused a coup in Iran when it staged riots, paid off journalists, and paid off generals resulting in a change of leadership. There are many more examples of this, but all that was shown here was Nuland coordinated US support for a candidate. That's not enough.
You said the US orchestrated the coup so confidently and absolutely as if it was another one of these scenarios. It was a call for coordinating and exercising the US' influence on Ukraine. Not a coup though.
> We can debate semantics over the preferred definition of coup, but the bottom line is there was extraordinarily blatant foreign interference in Ukraine's democratic process, and the US government clearly played a central role and achieved their goals.
Unfortunately semantics is where we have gone. The call does not show the US orchestrated any coup. That's a significant mischaracterization. Influenced? Yes. Interfered with? By talking to their politicians, probably. Orchestrated the overthrow of their government? No.
I could definitely see the US actually being behind the coup though. They've shamelessly done it countless times throughout history. It's just nothing out there so far is evidence of it.
> Would you call every other leader selection process where the US has given their support for a candidate a coup?
That's clearly a mischaracterization of what happened in Ukraine. Yes, Washington declared its support for the opposition in Ukraine. It also:
- bragged about spending $5 billion funding the opposition over preceding years.
- participated closely in the Yalta European Solution for decades, which was a forum for Washington power brokers + Ukrainian oligarchs.
- endorsed the overthrow of Yanukovych (i.e. by not demanding his democratic government was restored, which e.g. Washington did in Niger recently).
- and so on
It was a coup. It was primarily achieved through covert action, which by definition avoids yielding smoking guns that would cater to your personal, precise, technical definition of "coup", but given the totality of the circumstances we can only conclude that it was a coup.
> It was a coup. It was primarily achieved through covert action, which by definition avoids yielding smoking guns that would cater to your personal, precise, technical definition of "coup", but given the totality of the circumstances we can only conclude that it was a coup.
What it seems like is that there isn't much evidence or sources. Anyone could claim anything was achieved through primary covert action and has not yielded any smoking guns or real evidence.
I could claim that all the coup hubbub was started by Russia as an attempt to ferment a civil war in Ukraine as a pretext for invading as achieved through covert action.
And when that failed they used there 'little green men' to start the civil war instead.
Exactly. There is no real evidence, so we can't conclude one way or another. A lot of people are treating the Nuland call like a smoking gun, but it isn't one.
That call happened around the time when the opposition, the government, the EU and Russia were negotiating the "Agreement on settlement of political crisis in Ukraine"[1].
The gist of the agreement was that the opposition candidate would become prime minister and Yanukovych would remain president until the elections (which didn't materialize because he fled the country).
Note that there was no US at the table. Nuland and Pyatt weren't "orchestrating" anything. In fact, they were frustrated that the US wasn't participating in the talks, hence the "fuck the EU" in that call.
All this leak shows is that US officials were trying to influence negotiations to which they weren't invited.
Most of the world's population that do live in liberal democracies with free press also believes all kinds of conspiracy theories. I doubt you could find a single trustworthy source that could prove any significant difference between the two.
I'd say the US and Russian populations are just as susceptible to conspiracy theories and propaganda, but Russia's propaganda is on another level and much more blatant. Their line seems to be further than the US'.
From my experience living in Russia I would say if you _don't_ believe in conspiracy theories, somewhat in the line of all democratic regimes being fake and secretly ruled by some invisible shadow global government, you are perceived as weirdo and an outlier. That's purely anecdotal of course, I couldn't find any studies that would show the numbers.
Edward Bernays, the father of modern public relations/propaganda, wrote in the 1920s about such flaws of democracy. He directly employed terms similar to "shadow government". He was not a fringe dissident or "conspiracy theorist", he was a influential member of the establishment, who participated in the overthrow of Latin American governments. You really should read at least the intro of Propaganda (1928). Here are the first three sentences:
> The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.
This is written by a guy who did that for a living.
Acknowledging the systemic flaws of liberal democracy is not a conspiracy theory. In fact, it is the opposite: it explains the reality of modern democracy in terms of structural factors and incentives. That said, he also describes actual conspiracies e.g. how particular advertisement campaigns operated.
This was well-understood a century ago.
The people who regurgitate what they learn in their state-approved textbooks/movies are more akin to conspiracy theorists; it requires a certain level of fantastical thinking to believe that USA (or RF), on a national level, is a de facto democracy.
There is a lot of actual conspiracies. Much more than conspiracy theories. The only known working process to uncover a conspiracy is to conduct an investigation and then prove the findings in a court.
> e.g. while Russia is responsible for invading, Victoria Nuland was caught red-handed orchestrating the Ukrainian coup/government that precipitated it.
The claim of "orchestrating a coup" is unsupported by evidence, and any both-sidesism does not do justice to the fact that:
a) Ukraine has the right to elect whomever they want to govern their country, despite Russia's preferences to create vassals of its neighbor states
b) Russia has twice invaded Ukraine (as well as other neighbors like Georgia) and thus directly caused hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides
Between Ukraine and Russia, only one of them is illegally occupying the territory of the other, only one of them is operating torture chambers in the territory of the other, and only one of them has kidnapped more than a million children from the territory of the other. There is no both sides between Russia and Ukraine in terms of guilt.
Israel is doing a great deal to support Ukraine with humanitarian and non-lethal military aid (like helmets) because Iran is on the other side, although you are correct to note that the situation is complicated, largely because of Russia support for a bloody regime in Syria.
People focused on US actions during the Yanukovych years seem to believe that he himself was legitimate, when there is much evidence that he was corrupt, anti-democratic and supported by Russia:
As for the 15% claim, I would add that a large part of that 15% supporting Ukraine includes countries that share a border with Russia or its vassals, including eastern EU and NATO states, as well as Japan and S. Korea. Those countries have the most skin in the game, and their position and actions in this conflict should be given much greater weight than the rest of the world. It's not a coincidence that they want Russia's wars of expansion to stop in Donbass.
Ask Finland, Poland, Romania, or any of the Baltic states about who they want to win in Ukraine and you will get a very clear answer. Their populations have all been under the Kremlin's yoke or fought a war against Moscow in living memory.
The anglosphere (US/UK/Australia/New Zealand/Canada) + EU is 470 million + 448 million respectively. That's the entirety of the Western world, and less than 12% of the world's population. One of JFK's greatest speeches [1] hit on this point:
"We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient that we are only six percent [4% now] of the world's population, and that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind that we cannot write every wrong or reverse each adversity and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem."
The sort of wisdom and pragmatism completely absent from politicians since JFK.
Just because the government of a country considers it politically expedient to treat the situation as morally grey does not mean the population uniformly shares the same opinion.
Vis a vis, just because the government of a country considers it politically expedient to treat the situation as the embodiment of Good vs Evil, does not mean the population uniformly shares the same opinion. In fact, I think this is the case nowhere in the world, including Russia and Ukraine.
Well I mean you can look at what polls do exist, and it's not ambiguous. But I'd also appeal to a logical aspect here. Homogeneous dogmatic thinking, at scale, is not natural - and arguably doesn't exist. Instead it's primarily a product of propaganda and efforts to drive people to self-censor.
Both of these are absolutely rampant in the West at the moment, but not so much in most of the rest of the world (at least not on this topic). People, left to their own devices, are generally pretty awesome. It's only when you introduce self righteousness and propaganda that we turn into unthinking animals. It's no coincidence that self righteousness and propaganda go hand in hand with war.
I'd argue the opposite. Some things, in the moment, are really quite morally obvious — and then propaganda starts doing its work to make them seem more ambiguous than they actually are.
> Both of these are absolutely rampant in the West at the moment, but not so much in most of the rest of the world.
You think propaganda-driven homogeneous dogmatic thinking doesn't exist in China and India...?!
Can you offer any examples? In general, I think you'll immediately run into a relativism problem. What is moral for one person is amoral for another. This is one of the main reasons I think it's safe to say that dogmatic thinking at scale is so unnatural.
As for my comment, I was obviously just referring to this topic.
