You do realize that there were two elections since then, don't you? How long are you going to push this canard?
“Good point. 50% of Ukrainians voted for pro-Russian candidates before a violent Revolution overthrew Democracy in Ukraine in 2014”
Can I venture some additional information:
70% of Ukrainians - and a higher percentage than that for those who grew up in the Soviet era - speak Russian. About the same percentage of Ukrainians - and MPs in 2013 - were in favor of far better relations with Russia AND Europe, not picking one over the other. And in fact such a position would’ve been entirely consistent with the neutrality that is expected of Ukraine.
Therefore, if Putin were to be believed, he’s fighting for 70% of Ukraine but ALSO should’ve been fully supportive of it having free trade with the EU. Except, he wasn’t.
Yanukovych (President) and Azarov (Prime Minister) ordered the suspension of preparations for the pact between Kiev and Brussels after talks between themselves and their Russian counterparts. Under their direction, the Party of Regions rejected six bills aimed at meeting the EU’s terms for the FTA.
Yanukovych then signed a deal with Putin that locked Ukraine into a toxic arrangement that effectively handed sizeable control over their economy directly to economists in the Kremlin.
Around the same time, Azarov told the Communist party leader his government was planning Ukraine’s accession to the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia.
None of those moves were ever put to the Rada, let alone the Ukrainian people. But anyone who knows what membership of either the EU Customs Union or the Russian Customs Union means, knows that locking into either one effectively cedes power to the states with the most powerful levers in those unions.
So if you want to play the game of democratic mandates, Yanukovych and the second Azarov government took action in direct opposition to an overwhelming cross-party consensus that even included their own party, in addition to an electoral mandate, to pursue closer ties with Europe AS WELL AS closer ties to Russia, but without actually going all into either the EU or the Russian union.
And boy did Yanukovych get to trouser a lot of money from the Kremlin for doing a deal that would’ve forced Ukraine into the Russian Customs Union WITH Kremlin control over their economy.
The violent revolution that followed in Ukraine “overthrew” democracy only if you truly believe that a democratically elected leader can throw out their own mandate and do something as major as willingly sign a deal that makes their country DIRECTLY subservient to a foreign power, without consultation, and expect to get away with it.
Would you say, if violence had broken out in support of Trump and against that Biden administration? Would you say the violence was to preserve democracy or overthrow democracy? Maybe not. How about if Biden had suddenly admitted he’d signed a deal with China that, in the event of a missed payment here and there, would effectively give China control over America’s federal assets?
Because that’s the unfortunate reality of the 2014 Euromaidan. It really was THAT big a deal.
If you truly believe that Euromaidan had no merit, then by the exact same logic there shouldn’t have been any protests at the Capitol even if Biden did something THAT big and THAT bad.
Being a patriot, I’m sure you wouldn’t be prepared to sign that off. Most right-thinking patriots would be queuing up to string their president up on the nearest lamp-post if they did something that serious.
And that’s what happened in Ukraine - which is why Azarov and Yanukovych both fled to Russia after their own government collapsed in response to their own betrayal of their own country.