I’m only caught up to what’s been declassified, so I had to google what you’re talking about. This [0] is a good enough answer for me: CIA involvement in 2014 is a rumor at best and Russian propaganda at worst. I like knowing what my government is up to so if you have a credible source by all means…
> The claims are coming from Putin's advisers who threatened to invade Ukraine. However, there's a problem with this stance - Ukraine protesters did not need significant funds and had very few weapons, mostly self-made Molotov cocktails, and absolutely no heavy weapons or even machine guns. Their actions were fairly chaotic, but when 300,000 people pour on the streets, little can be done in response. In the meantime, no CIA agents were documented in Kiev - Russia would have advertised such evidence if there was any.
Further down:
> There was no “coup.” After about three months of protests and police violence against demonstrators, Ukrainian president Yanukovych fled the country to escape prosecution, was kicked out of his own party, and voted out of office, peacefully, by a majority of the democratically elected parliament, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The largest block of parliamentarians that voted him out were his own party members and former party members.
[0] https://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-credible-evidence-that-Uk...
In April 2014 the CIA director was in Kiev, immediately after the coup.
Additionally, federal law prohibits diplomacy with governments who came to power via coups, yet we were engaging in diplomacy immediately after it happened.
The article makes some claims I'm skeptical of
> Obama administration-backed coup that toppled a Russia-friendly government in Kyiv.
I haven't seen any material evidence of how the coup was backed by America. Obviously it wouldn't be the first time, but I see this stated as fact when it's little more than he-said she-said.
> Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in 1994 in exchange for U.S. security guarantees in the event its neighbors, Russia in particular, turned hostile.
It was never Ukraine's arsenal, it was USSR leftovers, the launch codes were in Moscow. Further, this "in exchange" is without citation. The Budapest agreement is short and sweet, we (UK/USA/Rus) promise not to attack Ukraine, we promise to come to her aide in the event of nuclear war. It is not a defence pact, and the only nation in violation is Russia.
And look, I was born in 1990, I am not a political scientist nor historian. I just don't take Putin's word on any of this. I don't know how federal law applies to international relations, but saying USA somehow holds itself back from diplomacy with post-coup-power is laughable to me given how many coups we instigated and then normalized relations (I am not beyond recognizing USA as the bad guy, but coup is a somewhat intersubjective notion outside of military juntas). What law is this?
