10 YEARS SINCE THE COUP D'ÉTAT IN UKRAINE
THE end of February is a particular period to discuss in absolutely sincere and candid manner. Ten years ago, the February 22 has divided the history of Europe and the Euro-Atlantic region into 'before' and 'after'.
Immediately after the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War the USA and its NATO allies began actively working with the leadership and society of the former Soviet republics to shape them for the western purposes and increase influence there under the guise of "democratisation" and with zero regard for the national interests of those states.
Ukraine has always received special attention in the policy of the Western states in the post-Soviet space as it was the most developed republic with strong industrial, agricultural and scientific potential.
The goal was to weaken its economy and make it work for Western capital. To this end, the USA and the EU, by hand of obedient Ukrainian elites, were methodically destroying the country's economy and severing the economic, trade and cultural ties with Russia, thus eliminating another strong rival in the global market and turning Ukraine into a source of cheap food and raw materials for Western companies while forcing millions of Ukrainians to lose their jobs and seek new ones abroad.
In the early 2000s, “the collective West” inspired the “Orange Revolution” of 2004 when forces that aimed at distancing Ukraine from Russia and integrating it into the Euro-Atlantic institutions came to power in Kiev.
At that time, however, the attempt to separate Ukraine from Russia failed. Nevertheless, the blatant interference of the NATO countries in the internal affairs of this country’s domestic affairs triggered a deep political crisis that became irreversible and led to tragic events in Ukraine in late 2013 – early 2014.
In 2013, the Western countries and the Ukrainian opposition went on the offensive to ultimately change Ukraine's multi-vector course and incorporate its economy and politics into the Western paradigm.
President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to postpone the signing of the Association Agreement with the EU in November 2013 and to re-assess the situation from the standpoint of Kiev's commitments under the CIS Free Trade Area Treaty, served as a pretext for organising, first, the “Euromaidan” and then an armed coup d'etat in Kiev in February 2014, encouraged and financed by the Western countries, which brought the radical nationalist forces to power in Ukraine.
However, further escalation could have been avoided if the Agreement on the Settlement of the Political Crisis in Ukraine between the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and the then opposition leaders Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Vitali Klitschko and Oleg Tyagnybok had been implemented.
It was signed on February 21, 2014 through the mediation of the EU and supported by the Foreign Ministers of Germany, France and Poland. This document provided for the formation of a government of national confidence, the implementation of a constitutional reform and holding of early presidential election.
Not a single provision of this agreement has been fulfilled. Moreover, a few hours after its signing, a coup took place in Kiev. On February 22, 2014, the Verkhovnaya Rada adopted an act on the "withdrawal" of Viktor Yanukovych from the duties of the President of Ukraine, thus usurping the power.
However, the legitimate President remained in the territory of Ukraine and did not declare his resignation. The formation of a "government of victors" was proclaimed.
There were no official statements from the representatives of the USA and the EU calling for respecting the agreement of February 21, 2014, signed through the mediation of Germany, France and Poland. The West rushed to recognise the "regime change" in Ukraine and to encourage the coup leaders in their anti-Russian policy.
Such "mediation" efforts led to a sharp polarisation of the Ukrainian society, which predetermined an armed civil conflict. The first step of the "victors of Maidan," in particular, an attempt to repeal the law on regional languages, caused deep concern among the population in Southeastern Ukraine where people's militia spontaneously began to form.
Kiev immediately accused all residents of this region of "treason" and "terrorism" and deployed army and neo-Nazi punitive squads to suppress the protests.
The new authorities launched the so-called "anti-terrorist operation" to suppress protests in Donbass by force. The USA and the EU did not urge the Kiev regime to refrain from using force, as they did with Viktor Yanukovych, who was demanded to show "humanity" to the Maidan protesters.
In order to prevent the civil war from spreading across Ukraine the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements of February 12, 2015 was signed, with Russia's active mediation.
It was approved by the UN Security Council Resolution 2202. It became the only legal basis for Ukraine’s internal settlement. However, Kiev undermined the fulfillment of its obligations, while the Western countries turned a blind eye on this.
Germany and France, who were co-authors and co-sponsors of the Minsk peace process, did not exert any pressure on the Kiev regime to force it to fulfill its obligations.
Later in 2020, former Ukrainian President Petr Poroshenko confessed that the Minsk Agreements’ only purpose was to give Kiev time to strengthen the Ukrainian Armed Forces, but not to cease the hostilities.
In December 2022, the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the former French President François Hollande confirmed this.
The coming to power of President Vladimir Zelensky in Ukraine in 2019 did not bring any positive change either. Influenced by various internal and external political forces, the new leader continued to undermine the Minsk Agreements by imitating the negotiation process and dragging it out as long as possible under farfetched pretexts.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian armed formations have been shelling Donbass for all these years. An inhuman social, economic and transport blockade was imposed on its residents, bringing the region to the brink of survival. This destructive policy of Kiev was supported by the USA and its allies.
Since 2014, under the supervision and with the direct involvement of advisors from the NATO countries, Ukraine has been transformed into an anti-Russian country at an accelerating pace. The work was carried out in several areas at the same time.
The main focus was on the destruction of the cultural code of the Ukrainian people through the forced de-Russification and Ukrainisation of the country, the brainwashing of the population in the spirit of hatred and hostility towards Russia and Russians, the erasure of the memory of the common past and the incitement of the neo-Nazi sentiments.
In the same vein was the policy of the Western countries and Kiev to rewrite history, revise the results of the World War II and discredit the USSR's policies in Eastern Europe and on its own territory.
The most important element of the anti-Russian activities of the Western countries in Ukraine and in the entire Black Sea and Eastern European region has been its accelerated militarization with the view to turn this country into a military foothold. After the coup d'état, the United States and its allies have been continually funneling arms and equipment into Ukraine at an accelerated pace and conducting large-scale military maneuvers near our borders. NATO instructors have also been training Ukrainian soldiers.
For a long time, American biolabs have been secretly operating in Ukraine, where military biological programs have been implemented in violation of the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction.
Ukraine is an integral part of the Russian history and the cradle of Orthodoxy, which is the common spiritual and moral foundation of our people. We cannot allow a threat to Russia and our people to come from its
territory.
Moreover, we have repeatedly warned that further aggravation of the situation in Donbass could have the most serious consequences for regional and all-European stability.
At the end of 2021, in an effort to prevent further escalation of the conflict, Russia drafted and sent to Western partners proposals on mutual legal security guarantees, including the non-expansion of NATO to the East and getting its military infrastructure back to the 1997 configuration, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed.
However, the West ignored these proposals, as well as other Russian steps aimed at achieving peace.
Since the beginning of 2022, we have witnessed a sharp deterioration of the situation along the entire contact line in Donbass. Its population faced a real threat of direct physical extermination coming from the Kiev authorities. Refugees
flooded into Russia. As it later turned out, the Ukrainian Armed Forces had planned to seize Donbass by force in March 2022.
Kiev's desire publicly voiced by Vladimir Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference in February 2022 to acquire nuclear weapons, which posed a real risk to Russia and international security as a whole, caused serious concern.
As a result, we had no choice but to recognise the independence of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People's Republic (LPR) on February 21, 2022 and to launch a Special Military Operation (SMO) on February 24, 2022 to protect Donbass, demilitarise and denazify Ukraine, as well as to eliminate threats to Russian security coming from its territory.
Russia did not "attack" Ukraine, as it is actively promoted by the Western propaganda, but launched a Special Military Operation. It is being carried out in accordance with Article 51 of Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, in full compliance with the Russian legislation and at the request of the Donbass Republics, which had been subject to the Kiev regime's shelling and blockade for eight years with the connivance of the Western countries.
This is confirmed by the decision of the International Court of Justice to refuse to recognise Russia as an “aggressor state,” and the DPR and LPR as “terrorist organisations” on the basis of accusations from Ukraine (January 31, 2024)
Today, the Western countries continue to actively funnel weapons into the Kiev regime. In addition, the United States and its NATO allies have been conducting military training as well as teaching Ukrainian soldiers how to use more advanced weapons, including tanks, air defence systems and even aircraft.
In this way, the West has been sliding deeper and deeper into the Ukrainian conflict, constantly raising the stakes. This indisputably proves that neither Kiev nor the Western countries want any diplomatic solution.
At the same time, neither the Western countries nor even the Ukrainian authorities themselves hide the fact that their goal is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. For this purpose, they are ready to wage war "to the last Ukrainian," sacrificing all of Ukraine and its people, whose interests are not considered by anyone in Washington and Brussels.
Besides, Ukraine is a testing ground for the Western countries to test their weapons and various military tactics.
The activities of the Western countries and the Kiev regime loyal to them confirm the global character of today's confrontation in Ukraine. In reality, we are not dealing with Kiev, but with the NATO-Ukrainian military and industrial cluster.
Ukraine is just an instrument in the hands of the United States and its NATO allies, whose long-term goal is to "defeat Russia on the battlefield" at any cost, and to break the security architecture in the post-Soviet space and Eurasia as a whole.
As part of the large-scale "hybrid war" that the Western countries are waging against Russia, military and financial assistance to Ukraine from the United States, its allies and partners remains an important factor. Since the beginning of the Special Military Operation, almost 40 countries have provided Kiev with assistance of various kinds.
About half of these countries have provided more than $500, 000, 000. The top five donors account for 81 percent of the total amount, including the United States (43 percent), EU institutions (21 percent), the United Kingdom and Germany (six percent each), and Japan (four percent).
The amount of purely military aid is also comparable, where the dominance of the US is even more pronounced. Washington accounts for 53 percent of the total volume of military aid pledged, Germany for nine percent, the United Kingdom for eight percent, EU institutions for eight percent, and Poland for four percent.
The United States not only leads the way in providing military assistance to Ukraine, but also coordinates efforts of the entire Western camp in this area. The so-called Ukraine Defence Contact Group based in Ramstein with more than 50 participating countries operates under the American chairmanship. Since February 2022, Kiev has received more than $200, 000, 000, 000 from Western sponsors for its military needs.
The range of supplies has constantly been extended and improved, and the weapons being supplied have been tactically and technically advanced.
Tanks, armoured infantry fighting vehicles, armoured personnel carriers, artillery units, portable anti-aircraft and anti-tank missile systems, high-mobility artillery rocket systems, long-range missile systems and their missiles, various munitions, including cluster and depleted uranium shells, unmanned aerial vehicles, air defence systems, engineering equipment and ammunition are being sent to Ukraine.
And the West's belief that it can get away with things after waging a hybrid war against Russia is mistaken. Washington and NATO will be held accountable for sponsoring Kiev's killing machine for years.
They will answer for everything and the price will be judged by those whose lands were burned by the West's “indirect war.” Life will judge. History will judge.
And one more thing. In this context, it is important that we, Russia, take a new look at ourselves. The Special Military Operation has not only exposed the tumour of Western aggression that had been growing in Ukraine, it has completely dispelled the myths in Russian society about possibility of equally valuable dialogue with the West. The self-deception has evaporated.
We returned to our wise historic popularly shared understanding that Russia is a separate unique self-sufficient nation and civilisation. Its spiritual, economic, and cultural bonds are incredibly strong. The external foe crashed against the rock of unshakable Russian spirit.
Russia, with its thousand-year history, will always stand guard over its borders, the ideals of justice and truth throughout the world, and in this it has enough friends and like-minded people in the world, including friendly Zambia.