***Let’s get this right — YOU have no problem with illegal coups that drive out democratically-elected leaders from office? That doesn’t surprise me in the least.***
Many members of his own party voted to remove him from power. He called on the Armed Forces to support him but they refused, so they must have seen him as too tainted by the killings of all those protestors to be worth protecting.
I do agree with you about one thing though. He was not given due process. They should have used the proper impeachment process to remove him before having a new election. By failing to do it that way they gave ammunition to the Kremlin who were then able to claim that he was the victim of an illegal coup and his enemies were now coming to get his pro-Russian supporters in the east. (The Kremlin’s propaganda caused pro-Russians in Donetsk/Luhansk to go out and attack Police Stations, government buildings etc, which set them on the course for civil war.)
***And, I have ZERO problem with Russia intervening in Ukraine on behalf of the voters who were disenfranchised and ended up being persecuted and killed by the rogue Ukrainian nationalist government that took over.***
By invading the whole east of the country? Don’t be absurd.
It looks like the pro-Russians in the Donbass were stirred up into a frenzy by Kremlin propaganda and given material support by the Russian state via mercenaries (notably the Wagner Group). They then started fighting the Ukrainian state with a view to becoming independent and received retaliation from right-wing Ukrainian paramilitaries (like the Azov Brigade). Azov started out as a volunteer group of ultra-nationalists, it was not under the control of the Ukrainian government.
It is hardly surprising that Ukrainian skinheads would travel to a region which is trying to secede from their country and start attacking people who they regard as traitors. We have had exactly the same here in Britain, where members of the National Front and Combat 18 travelled to Northern Ireland to help the Loyalists fight Sinn Fein/IRA. I am sure that something similar would happen in the USA if Hispanics in Texas tried to start a civil war there to allow Mexico to absorb a large chunk of Texas.
***In fact, I’m quite pleased those in the recently annexed part of the Russian Federation finally live in a free country and under a government that respects their rights as citizens.***
Russia, a free country! HaHaHa. Men of all ages in the Russian occupied Donbass are now being conscripted and sent to the front line. Putin couldn’t care less about their lives. Putin is a murdering gangster. Have you forgotten about Bucha, Irpin and Mariupol? Forgotten about Politkovskaya, Litvinenko and Nemtsov? Already forgotten about Navalny?
***That annexed territory will never, ever be part of Ukraine again***
IMHO, they should let them keep Donestsk and Luhansk as they are full of pro-Russian traitors who were always loyal to Russia not Ukraine. However, the south (which mostly fell due to the treachery of paid-off Army officers) still has many people in it who hate the Russians, so I cannot join you in your eagerness for them to suffer.
***that is if Ukraine even exists after the war is over.***
So peace for Russia, a loss of country and culture for Ukrainians and God knows how many thousands disappear into Putin’s gulag system, never to be seen again. That on top of the 10s of thousands of already stolen Ukrainian children.
There is no question is WAS an illegal coup. One that CIA and, I'm sure, the MI6, helped foment.
And, after it was completed, the Ukrainian nationalists and neo-Nazis went on to persecute those in eastern Ukraine. They tried to cutoff Russia from its naval base in Crimea, which has existed longer than the US Constitution has. They also cutoff the water to Crimea.
There is no chance in the world that those in Crimea and eastern Ukraine should have had tolerate that kind of abuse of their human rights.