Except that's not how Russia tells it, that's what actually happened.
On February 21 then acting Ukrainian president Yanukovych signed a transition deal with the Ukrainian opposition, brokered by the EU and Russia [0].
That should have been the end of most of it, but it wasn't, later that day Yatsenyuk, aka "Yats our guy" from the Nuland tape, and Tyahnybok, who both agreed and signed to the deal, went on stage on Euromaidan and then declared how "That's not enough" riling up the protesters to demand more.
Klitschko, who was constantly trying to keep the peace [1], and was Merkel's aka the EU's choice [2] was completely left out of that. More context on that in the leaked Nuland call, where she rates Klitschko's governmental experience not high enough for such a position, thus their go ahead with "Yats is our guy" and "Fuck the EU".
That situation escalated then so much, that by the early morning of February 22 the leader of Right Sector announced how they had taken over, and secured, the parliament and several other local government buildings [3].
It's exactly that part the current "Russia lies" narrative always leaves out, by claiming Yanukovych just randomly fled from a completely peaceful protest.
After Yanukovych fled, Yatsenyuk announced their new post-coup government to rather frosty reception on Euromaidan [4].
As a German I was actively following the situation back then, that's why I still have most of these sources. But since then so much information was straight up "deleted" from the web. It used to be extremely easy to find violent footage from Euromaidan on Twitter and YouTube, not anymore, all deleted as "Russian propaganda" so the "peaceful revolution, there was never a civil war" narrative can keep getting pushed without too much of an factual opposition.
Another, rather concrete, example is Yatsenyuk's "Open Ukraine Foundation", that went online shortly after the coup, it's partners page had all the usual US regime change actors bluntly spelled out [5]. First the foundation changed from his name, to his wives, and ultimately that partners page vanished completely, too blatantly incriminating.
[0] https://www.politico.eu/article/yanukovych-signs-transition-...
[1] https://youtu.be/5bPKFto1AFY
[2] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/ukraine-merkel-will-k...
[3] https://www.unian.net/politics/888104-verhovnaya-rada-admini...
[4] https://youtu.be/wegtWNIFX1Y
[5] https://web.archive.org/web/20140302111543/http://openukrain...
Alleged Nuland tape, it hasn't been in anyway shape or form authenticated and we know from this war that Russia is more then happy to use deep fakes to control the narrative.
> It's exactly that part the current "Russia lies" narrative always leaves out, by claiming Yanukovych just randomly fled from a completely peaceful protest.
It's not a narrative, unless you seriously believe in Ukrainian weaponised witches/black magic and Ukrainian bio engineered super soldiers.
Its funny you paint a very different picture to the wikipedia article.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity
> The following day, police withdrew from central Kyiv, which came under effective control of the protesters. Yanukovych fled the city.[33] That day, the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from office by 328 to 0 (72.8% of the parliament's 450 members).
Looks like Yanukovych ran away after he got ousted by the parliament themselves.
Except the USG officially apologized for the "undiplomatic language" on the tape [0]
Do you think the USG is in the habit of apologizing for Russian fakes or what happened there?
> It's not a narrative
Yes, the "peaceful revolution" is very much a manufactured narrative, you should check out your own link [1]
> unless you seriously believe in Ukrainian weaponised witches/black magic and Ukrainian bio engineered super soldiers.
Can you please stop the bad faith arguing and strawmanning? I didn't write a single thing about anything like that.
> Its funny you paint a very different picture to the wikipedia article
Lets take a look at the actual TIMES article that's the citation for that [2];
"Ukraine’s beleaguered President Viktor Yanukovych fled Kiev Saturday as protestors took full control of Ukraine’s capital"
Beleaguered president fled after protesters took control of the capital, which also involved taking control of the parliament and the local security authorities, Right Sector announced it very much themselves in the very early morning of 22 February [3];
"“The Seventh Hundred is located inside the Verkhovna Rada. Also there is a division of the "Right Sector". Protected by the Cabinet. The nineteenth and third hundreds are guarding the Presidential Administration. The Fifteenth Hundred guards the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” Parubiy said."
Right Sector had control over who they let enter the parliament and who not. Want to guess who they let in, and who don't? That's also why the Wikipedia article has several different numbers for that how many actually participated in those parliamental votes. Sometimes it talks about 328 attending, then it's 386 and then it's suddenly "450 members voted 332-0", the Wikipedia article is all over the place on that.
Additionally; Did Russia also fake McCain shaking all the right hands [4]? Was it Russia who then made an American investment banker the new minister of finance for Ukraine, complete with fast-tracked citizenship? [5]
The evidence is overwhelming and blatant, that's also why all you can do is deny, even trying to strawman the discussion by talking about "weaponized witches".
Very much the same as back in the early 2000s when everybody knew the USG was lying about Saddam being responsible for 9/11 and the WMD, yet everybody played along for appearances and not wanting to get called a "terrorist supporter". But unlike back then, this time the stakes actually involve nuclear weapons.
This might or might not be the reason US authorities have lately been very active in educating their population about the proper response to a "radiation event" [6] [7] [8].
Mostly unnoticed in the US, yet to those who was alive during the cold war, particularly in central Europe, that's just quite scary, particularly in combination with the even worse than war on terror levels of information distortion.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/06/us-ukraine-rus...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity#/media/F...
[3] https://www.unian.net/politics/888104-verhovnaya-rada-admini...
[4] https://www.businessinsider.com/john-mccain-meets-oleh-tyahn...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Jaresko#Citizenship
[6] https://youtu.be/N-5d7V4Sbqk
[7] https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/emergencies/index.htm
[8] https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlyterrifying/comments/ufbx40/the...
> Except the USG officially apologized for the "undiplomatic language" on the tape [0]
>> Victoria Nuland reportedly said ‘Fuck the EU’ speaking of Ukraine crisis, though department didn’t confirm it was her voice on tape
There’s no confirmation whos voice is on that tape although the tape itself is reportedly said to be authentic
> Yes, the "peaceful revolution" is very much a manufactured narrative, you should check out your own link [1]
The Russians often lie _is not a narrative_ the Russian government nearly never tells the truth. All you need to look at is there state media during this war to see many examples of it, from downing civilian aircraft to weaponised witches, the firehose of falsehood is well and alive.
> Yes, the "peaceful revolution" is very much a manufactured narrative, you should check out your own link [1]
The only person on that page that suggests this is a coup is the former president who got deposed and ran away back to his masters in Russia. No amount of images will change the fact it wasn’t a coupe, no amount of walls of text from you will either.
> The evidence is overwhelming and blatant, that's also why all you can do is deny, even trying to strawman the discussion by talking about "weaponized witches"
Do you think the Russians lie?.
What has lately been up with the voting system on HN? Apparently people I reply to, with much newer accounts, can just instantly downvote my comments.
Yet most of the time I don't even get a downvote option, and pretty much never to any of the replies to my comments.
Feels like the system is being gamed by people with alt accounts.
Russia likes to tell a lot of lies and half truths to muddy the waters of everything I wouldn't trust what they they also generally don't provide any solid evidence of any of there claims either, just take these examples.
"Russian State Media Claims to Discover Militarized Ukrainian Witches".
https://www.vice.com/en/article/dypmpk/russian-state-media-c...
"Russian lawmakers baselessly claim their army is up against biologically modified Ukrainian super soldiers"
https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-lawmakers-tout-basel...
"U.S. Ramps Up Ukraine Warnings as Russia Denies Invasion Plans"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-17/russia-te...
Russian state media just cannot be trusted to tell the truth, I wouldn't believe a single word they say.
> Note: I personally have no ability to determine the truth of the Russian side beyond reading the wikipedia page and noting it plausible.
This would be a mistake, the "firehose of falsehood" is a well known Russian tactic, they lie constantly just to muddy the water. All you need to do is look at MH70 (the civilian airliner that Russian troops pretending to be separatists shot down) to see it in action, before it was publicly revealed to be a airliner they where posing with pictures of the wreckage and bragging about downing a Ukrainian military plane then when it was revealed what happened a whole bunch of Russian pushed conspiracy theories started popping up regarding it.
> I wonder if you have some extra information on things like how many civilian causalties occurred in the Donbas before 2022.
Because of the way that Russia lies and muddies the water, the real numbers will never be known just look at how little casualties they are claiming on their side for the current war.
> or what the real support for Crimea joining Russia was?
Again because of the tactics the Russians use this will never be actually known. But maybe once Ukraine retakes Crimea we may know more.
To hear Russia tell it, Ukraine has bombed a lot of children in the last 8 years and was committing genocide in East Ukraine. Ukraine also got couped.
Note: I personally have no ability to determine the truth of the Russian side beyond reading the wikipedia page and noting it plausible. I wonder if you have some extra information on things like how many civilian causalties occurred in the Donbas before 2022 or what the real support for Crimea joining Russia was?