and now the honduran president’s wife, is in charge, and they are a perfect tool of venezuela, now her predecessors brother, ran a drug stamp with a brand on his product, so sometime we choose poorly

Agreed, which is also one reason why I argue that it is not always wrong to overthrow a democratically elected legal head of state. And while the “coup” was in fact legal in Honduras, why I am willing to argue that sometimes the defense of freedom warrants breaking the laws of man.

we pretend to misunderstand putin,

Maybe, but we also genuinely misunderstand him to a large degree. In part by design from him.

these games where we enabled the collapse of the russian economy, and birthed the oligarchs,

The Russian economy was chronically backwards for most of its history and the Soviets only helped that to some degree while worsening others. It was already collapsing under its own weight during Brezhnev’s time at the latest, and if anything we tried to prop it up under the Late Soviet Period and then tried to revitalize it (admittedly in rather dumb fashion) after it.

Meanwhile, many and maybe most of the oligarchs around today were around or at least had their predecessors around under the Soviet system, and indeed one reason why things turned out the way they did is they used their power, connections, and assets to make out like bandits during shock therapy.

some have tried to make putin at the center of the picture,

Agreed, and I think that is at best subpar. Putin may be center stage now but he largley represents much bigger issues.

catherine belton one of the latest, but phillip short takes a middle course, now the same crew that was all in for brezhnev’s lies that would be biden kerry, panetta, now are the great cold warriors pshaw,

Agreed. It is laughable.

what accounting do we have of the 100 billion spent on ukraine, no one can say,

Mediocre at best but getting better. At least by the standards of what our corruptgovernment is.

zelensky finally had to cashier his chief of staff and the defense minister, how much money has gone down the drain to venues charted by panama dubai paradise papers who can say, they took a little tap at kolomoisky, hunters employer at burisma, and manager of the privat bank, what’s 6 billion lost between friends,

A very fair point, and why I will never claim Ukraine is corruption free. Though it is worth noting the central corruption scheme in this case was overcharging for mostly-domestic food to the troops, not regarding military assets sent by the West.

a reasonable account of about 350 years of history

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/02/_since_when_did_ukrainians_become_entitled_to_a_giant_state_.html

NOT really no.

This is purposefully conflating the heart of the Cossack Hetmanate around the Zaporozhian Host with the territory of all Ukraine. Which is absurd for a few different reasons, starting that Ukraine originally was “The Ukraine” and a term for Frontier or Borderland, and it was MUCH larger than the areas under the control of the Zaporozhian Host. And indeed the areas under the control of the Zaporozhian Host were much larger for most of the Uprising than what is on the map, as shown by how this falsely identifies Poltava as outside the Zaporozhian Host. Indeed, Rather than the Tsar “ceding” this territory to “Ukraine”, the Tsar first came into possession of this territory through the Cossacks PLEDGING FEALTY TO HIM at Pereyaslav. (Indeed, one reason why the decisive defeat of the Swedish Army and its Cossack allies by Tsar Pyotr the Great and the Cossack loyalists was because the Swedes were marching into the region to try and link up with the rebelling Hetman Ivan Mazepa).

So that’s already a fatal wound with this article.

Also completely ignored was the borders of the Hetmanate, its divisions after the Elder Khmelnitsky died during the “Ruin”, and so forth.

In 1919, two years after the Bolshevik Revolution, Vladimir Lenin became the architect of Ukraine, combining Novorossiya and Malorossiya into the new Socialist State of Ukraine (the yellow, blue, and orange areas on the map).

What an utter crock.

Lenin didn’t “add” those areas into Ukraine except formally, and indeed Ukrainian nationalists fought with Bolsheviks, Russian Whites, and Anarchists over most of that territory. Indeed, one reason why the early Bolsheviks romanticized Odessa so much was because it was the scene of one of their great victories in the South over the Ukrainian nationalists that already held the territory.

So this article’s slant is obvious. To downplay and minimize the definition of Ukraine. To attribute the territory of Ukraine not to any kind of cultural or national sentiment but to outside forces only. It is a farce and a lie.

The historical record demonstrates that contemporary Ukraine emerged from a mosaic of lands assembled by Russian conquests and paid for with Russian blood and treasure.

Partially true, but it was also forged by the communities there and by the bloodshed there, including by the Cossacks that the author is desperate to not see at Poltava in spite of how that presence there – lasting for more than a century – helped change the course of history (though not in the way most of said Cossacks would have hoped).

Except for a small area of the Zaporozhian Host (the red area on the map), Ukraine has no historical connection to the land it occupies and is the product of Russian geopolitical engineering.

Again, Fucking Bullshit.

Again, Nikolai Gogol one of the surrealist poets of Russian Tsarist Absolutism – but also a proud “South Russian” – underlined the distinctiveness of the region from the North.

The Union of Pereyaslav was negotiated on Hetmanate border towns with the Muscovite Russian realm, such as Poltava.

And I could go on.

Ironically those the author credits as “architects” of Ukraine (with some justification) pointedly ignore some of the rationale for it, especially by Lenin under his early policy of nationalities.

If Americans had been more aware of Ukrainian history, they would have raised reasonable doubts about the validity of Ukraine’s territorial aspirations.

Says the person who cobbled together a blatantly false map.

Konrad Adenauer once said, “History is the sum total of things that could be avoided.”

Petty witticisms to conceal a weak argument do not actually strengthen that argument.

It couldn’t be better said about Ukraine; if Czar Alexey in 1654 had not protected the Zaporozhian Host’s Cossacks, the precursors of Ukrainians, from annihilation, we would never have heard about Ukraine.

This is manifestly nonsense. The “Wild Fields” and “The Ukraine” had been present in literature for decades before Pereyaslav, and would continue on long after the Hetmanate was dismantled. But apparently the author does not know their Greater Renaissance history or their Gogol.

Color me SHOCKED.

The history, geography, the state of the economy, and the nature of domestic institutions predetermine a country’s behavior internationally.

Ah yes, Determinism. Why hasn’t this nonsense been thrown out?

To Markovsky, please read the seminal “The Greek Revolution” by Mark Mowitzer – an actual historian who can make an accurate map – about the limits of geographic determinism and “realpoltik.” And then kindly shut up until you have something coherent to say.

Ukraine, lacking strategic vision and experience in geopolitics, did not grasp the underlying reality when she pushed for NATO participation,

So much for “pretedeterming a country’s behavior.”

ostensibly for security reasons.

OSTENSIBLY?!!?!

Please, please compare the number of nations in NATO Russia has invaded, versus those not in it that it has.

Whatever the motivation, she failed to realize that the issue of war and peace is the product of mutual security — the security of one doesn’t produce insecurity for other. Ukraine’s drive to join NATO ignored thirty years of Russia’s warnings that NATO’s eastward expansion poses an existential threat to Russia.

Ah yes, the sick, twisted victim blaming horseschiesse of “You made Poor Putin hit you, because you wanted to join NATO….. after Poor Putin hit you. But that’s ok because his actions are predetermined by the nature of his institutions, economy, and geography.”

This all falls apart when you read the Astana Accord and how for whatever rhetoric the Kremlin said about NATO expansion, it was never willing to put this into law. And for good reason. There was zero grounds for such a demand. Which is why it at least tacitly acknowledged Ukraine had every right to join NATO, or any other foreign alliance, or none at all.

Whether political naiveté, recklessness, incessant appetite for foreign aid, or all of the above, Ukraine’s tenacious insistence on NATO membership, even in the face of a looming Russian invasion, instigated a war that could easily be avoided.

Except the war started in 2014, you simpering, illiterate, psychopathic liar.

It was a blunder of historic magnitude.

Not compared to Pereyaslav.

And, as this failed state, with the borders drawn by the Soviet Union, rotten with incompetence and corruption, collapses in blood and destruction, the eerie premonition is that Ukraine will remain a wasteland for generations.

As if there was any doubt that the author is a liar writing fantasy rather than honest analysis, here it is.

So, if Ukrainians deserve a state, they may indeed deserve the state they got.

There’s something incredibly evil about this, as well as boundlessly stupid. I realize I’m the history nerd who has a love of adventure stories in the 16th and 17th century and wargaming through the ages, but it REALLY doesn’t take a lot to realize who held control of Poltava in 1650 or some of the campaigning’s of the Hetmanate.

It takes a particularly depraved mind to try and twist history in an attempt to vilify a nation being invaded with the goal of partition by an aggressive neighbor, and particularly to pretend that Ukraine EVER only referred to the lands of the Zap Host.

But to answer this scumbag’s question:

Since When did Ukrainians Become Entitled to the State they Got?

No later than the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.

These areas voted for Yanukovych overwhelmingly.

This is true.

But it is worth noting that again, the votes to secede failed (and indeed were not held at all) in areas that weren’t violently occupied by Russian troops and what separatist allies there were. Funny coincidence, huh?

Also: Speaking of areas that voted overwhelmingly for Yanukovych, take a gander at the results for Kharkhiv (the place Yanukovych fled to, ostensibly as part of a routine visit- which itself is no great argument for Yanukovych’s good faith in the face of a legal summons but that’s another issue), Kherson, and Odessa in the 2010 election.

Turns out that voting for Yanukovych in 2010 is a very different thing from approving of his actions in 2013, or approving a Russian sponsored invasion and armed separatism in 2014.

As to whether or not the Maidan mob was sincere about removing Yanukovych by any means, here are a couple of examples from an article by Radio Free Europe:

I’m going to skip past this because I’ve already addressed this point, which is overly reliant on the idea that Yanukovych was removed in line with the “mob”‘s timeline, when he was not.

A member of parliament, Igor Horilov said, “At the moment the members of the parliament are trying to establish the law, which aims to legitimize the new government. There are three options for Yanukovych. He can resign. The second option is to take the case to court, as someone who broke the Ukrainian constitution. I don’t really want to talk about the third option. It’s to follow the destiny of Ceausescu.”

That would be Nicolae Ceausescu, Romanian dictator, given a short trial, then executed.

This is broadly true, though as it wound up Yanukovych – understanding these options as much as anybody – chose a Fourth Door: Going on the lam without notice to try and exploit the gap in the Ukrainian Constitution. This was meant to wrongfoot his opposition and to some degree it succeeded, but it didn’t change that.

The difference, of course, is Yanukovych was a legally elected President who had another year on his 5-year term.

And Hugo Chavez was a legally, democratically elected President too (and the Rada members that removed Yanukovych were also democratically elected, or reasonably so given Ukrainian politics).

There’s a reason why pretty much every constitutional oath of office demands more from its representatives than “Were you legally elected, Y/N?” Because constitutional and legal legitimacy demands a lot more than whether someone legally won a vote. I point to Lukashenko as ironclad evidence of that.

Bluntly, I think Horilov hit the nail on the head. Yanukovych knew quite well he had violated the Constitution (as the documents taken attest) and that in an actual trial his fate would be leery. But he decided not to formally resign and – understandably – also did not intend to follow Ceaucescu’s fate (which I note was ultimately a result of a betrayal by his close entourage), so he fled.

The fact that the Ukrainian Constitution still has no good answers for such a situation even after nearly a decade says nothing good about it or the people who replaced Yanukovych, but I don’t have to believe the Rada was a camp of saints or behaved as well as it could have to believe their actions were fundamentally based on the principles of the Ukrainian Constitution and Parliamentary Politics to deal with glaringly obvious hole in the rules, and the fact that they did not use this for further abuse (such as passing a host of laws and waiting about two weeks at which point an absent Yanukovych would be held to have “approved” them) speaks to some admirable restraint.

In the first round of voting Yanukovych received 35.3% of the vote to Yulia Tymoshenko’s 25.1%.
There was a runoff election the following month where Yanukovych received 49%, Tymoshenko 45% and none of the above 4.4%.
There was no indication by foreign governments that the election wasn’t fair.

Agreed. Which is why my main condemnation of Yanukovych is not that he was democratically, legally elected in 2010 but about his criminal history and actions, both before and afterwards. Because again, there’s a lot more to legitimacy than being “legally elected.” See: Hugo Chavez, Alex Lukashenko, etc.

The whole controversy isn’t moot. What happened affected the following events in the Donbas and Crimea.

I honestly can’t entirely agree. The areas held by the “Separatists” had far less to do with Lukashenko’s popularity (because the truth is that Lukashenko ISN’T popular any more in those areas) in 2010 than where Russian troops managed to take versus where they didn’t. Which is again particularly indicative in places like Kharkhiv.

Pro-Yanukovych sentiment often helped the Russian occupation troops recruit separatist auxiliaries, but they were not decisive.

We’re the guys who support the rule of law.

I support freedom even more than I do the rule of law, especially freedom from unjust tyranny. This was the stance of the Founding Fathers – who were hardly Libertarian Anarchists – , the defenders of the Personal Freedom Laws, and those who point to the Leviathan Progressive State’s glomming.

Just because something happens legally does not make it just or ethical, especially if the law is corrupted. We’ve seen that happen in our own country over the years.

Which is why my support for the rule of law is tempered by my support for freedom and cannot be otherwise. That obviously doesn’t mean I have a right to be blind to the obvious issues with what happened in Ukraine (as I’ve pointed out with the flaws in the Constitution and – even worse- how they have not been remedied), but it does mean that I am under no obligation to respect oppressive and unconstitutional laws such as the Anti-Protest Laws Yanukovych signed.

The Maidan mob could have agreed to agreement worked out by the Rada, Yanukovych and the representatives of Germany, France and Poland which would have resulted in early elections and the legal removal of Yanukovych.

And the “Maidan Mob””‘s Parliamentary Representatives and many of its street strength did.

As pointed out by the very existence of the agreement.

Which is part of the problem with trying to treat the “Maidan Mob” as a uniform monolith when it very clearly was not.

But in any case, that wouldn’t change the fact that the Rada had already lodged questions for Yanukovych and his cabinet to answer, only for Yanukovych to decide to not respond.

And in any case, the Russian Government’s response to Euromaidan and Yanukovych’s removal followed no laws whatsoever. Which is one reason for the constant stream of lies by the Kremlin about the nature of government in the occupied Crimea and the Donbas, the timeline of the arrival of Russian military units, and so forth.

I would suggest anyone that honestly wants to view the events watch this report by Vice news at the time beginning with the 19th through the 22nd of February, 2014.

If you don’t want to see the violence from the 19th and 20th, fast forward to about minute 9 when the events of the 22nd are shown.

This report is very much from the Western point of view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7e6B64Iqqg

Dear God, this is a real blast from the past. I vaguely remember seeing it well before but I do not remember it now. Will have to wait for later.

The “Revolution of Dignity” matters for several reasons.

Agreed.

As I’ve already stated, an illegal removal of a President popular in the East precipitated the events there.

Again, it’s at best dubiously illegal, especially in light of how Yanukovych’s flight from Kyiv in the face of summons from the Rada on false grounds was also illegal.

But at least as relevantly, arguing Yanukovych was “popular in the East” in 2014 on the basis of 2010 results is skipping a bit. By 2014 much of Yanukovych’s support had already worn off and – again – the majority of the political representation in the East had turned on him, as shown by the mutiny in the Regionnaire Party that spread to the rest of the Pan-Blue coalition.

There’s a reason why Putin will talk a great deal about the “Coup” of 2014 but downplays Yanukovych. Because even among the more extreme pro-Russian elements in traditionally Deep Blue territories, he is not very well regarded.

I’ve avoided any mention of US involvement in the Maidan protests. What started in November as mass protests stemming from Yanukovych’s reneging on signing the EU Association Agreement, had morphed into wider protests of his corruption and been co-opted by far-right nationalist movements, Right Sector and Svoboda which were demanding his resignation.

Agreed and all worth mentioning.

To what extent was the US involved? I don’t know.

Neither do I but we know the answer was “quite a lot.” The US had been pouring vast sums into “Orange” Parties and candidates for decades, as well as other Western governments and NGOs such as our “Friend” George Soros, and it was one reason for the intractable political conflicts between “Blue” and “Orange” that dominated Ukrainian political life until about 2013-2014 with the rise of Euromaidan, and especially after the Russian invasion.

The actual full story is probably not going to come out in our lifetime, but my biases do not mean I can ignore the obvious.

We do know that Senators John McCain and Chris Murphey met with and stood on the stage with Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the right wing nationalist party Svoboda, speaking to the protestors.

Indeed. As if I needed more reason to dislike them, especially McShame.

Victoria Nuland famously handed out cookies to the protestors at one point, and there is a phone call with Ambassador Pyatt and Nuland talking about who should be installed as interim President when Yanukovych was ousted.

This is true. Though the phone call is overstated. While the interim President (Yatsenyuk) was the one they concluded in the phone call, as were some of his cabinet picks, many others were not. Because while Nuland and the US were influential and not shy about throwing their weight around, ultimately their control over Ukrainian politics was finite.

When you view the circumstances of Feb. 20-22 in Ukraine with overthrow of the president, which the US supported/turned a blind eye to, and later recognized as legitimate, it makes the events of Jan. 6 and our government’s response understandable. The Democrats freaked out. The government came down on the protesters with an iron fist, even though we had no weapons, there was no chance an insurrection would result from the protests, no right-wing snipers shooting police.

You’re giving the Democrats far, FAR too much credit.

The worst violence regarding January 6th came long after that date, as a result of unethical and often illegal overreach by the US Government. The worst violence regarding Euromaidan came in the leadup to the agreement and then Yanukovych’s flight, through things such as far reaching exemptions for Berkut agents and others from prosecution.

Moreover, while the US Had been polarized for years (not helped by AntifA having a summer of Loving-to-Burn), it had little on Ukrainian political polarization, which spent nearly a quarter century polarized between two very large and lavishly funded camps. Ironically Yanukovych and Putin’s actions did more to change that than most.

In any case, of all the actions Yanukovych can be accused of, *DECLINING* offers for armed presence around the capital city is not one of them.

om, The Budapest Memorandum wasn’t a treaty.

Not from a US Point of View (which i s another issue I have, the failure to get Senate ratification), but from the British, Ukrainian, and Russian views it was. And in any case Congress did not raise any sustained objections to it.

It had just as much force as Jim Baker’s agreement with Gorbachev that NATO expanding eastward was unacceptable.

Untrue. Baker’s agreement (to the extent it even constituted an agreement, which I don’t think it did) bound him, his delegation, and maybe the Bush Sr. Government…. after consultation with other NATO members and Pact States.

In contrast, Russia, Ukraine, and the UK all passed it, and it was lodged with the UN for a reason, something the balleyhooed agreements about NATO expansion were not.

If I’m distorting the facts or events, I’m sure Turtler will chime in and correct me.

I fear you give me too much credit, since I am also fallible and hella biased. But I can try.

For the most part we agree with the core events, though I do find some of your key conclusions wrong, such as the exact chronology of events RE: Yanukovych’s removal and what it means vis a vis the legitimacy of the Russian occupation regimes in Crimea and the Donbas as far as the US is concerned.

Just a couple of additional points about the events of Feb. 20-22

The same day the Rada passed the resolution firing Yanukovych, officials also announced to the crowd that they needed to unite Ukraine in the east.

Which day is that? Since the resolution was passed on the 23rd, not the 22nd.

Ukraine used militias, basically private armies to go after the separatists in the Donbas. It was sometime later that they were incorporated into the regular army and national guard. So basically it was gang warfare, with “irregulars” on both sides. Recipe for bad things.

This is very true, though honestly the reality is even worse. “Gang Warfare” and private armies or protest mobs were already pretty common throughout Ukraine (indeed, one of Yanukovych’s major problems was wording his “Anti-Protest Law” so broadly it basically criminalized the “Mercenary” Rent-a-Protestors that had thrived over the political conflicts of the past couple decades and that Yanu had hired on occasion. So turning against them was bad). You already saw low level clashes between different protestors in the Donbas and Crimea.

The Russian invasions in Crimea and Donbas in 2014 kicked this up to 11 because it meant both governments went around playing Santa Claus to the gangs, protest groups, and paramilitaries on “Their side”, in part because they (Especially on the loyalists) were often all that side had in a given area (Azov still claims it saved Mariupol for the government in 2014; I’m not sure how true that is but it gives some idea of the atmosphere).

We’ve seen the problems with that firsthand. And while I wear my biases on my sleeve I will never claim that the Kremlin is the only side that has violent thugs and criminals among its ranks. Even a cursory read about the likes of Gaidar, Tornado, and Azov disprove that.

As to the US involvement, here is a clip from President Obama on Feb. 19 warning the Yanukovych government not to use force on peaceful protesters, and the protesters to remain peaceful.

He also said he thought there could still be a “peaceful transition”. What do you suppose he was referring to?

Agreed.

Yanukovych agreed to the early elections, reduce Presidential power, and early elections on Feb. 21, and only left after the Maidan mob rejected it. How could Obama know Yanukovych would leave Kyiv that night/early am?

Presumably by either contacting Obama semi-directly, or ringing up the Rada or Russian Government to tell him.

As to those peaceful protesters, four Berkut riot police were killed and 21 wounded before 9 am on Feb. 20, before the day ended up with 49 protestors killed that day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SftUiaHst58

Agreed, which is also why it is worth talking about a much wider picture. And why while the protestors were never ENTIRELY peaceful, the radicalization largely came in the aftermath of the anti-Protest laws.

But my posts are already long enough as it is, and I might elaborate on that later.

There’s another reason why the West must insist the method of removal of Yanukovych in Feb. 2014 was legal.

The Ukrainian constitution only allowed resignation, impeachment, health and death as reasons for the President to not serve out his term.

Some (not Western powers) have used Article 5 as a justification. It’s the only method that is legitimate as expressed in the constitution.

Article 5
“Ukraine is a republic.

The people are the bearers of sovereignty and the only source of power in Ukraine. The people exercise power directly and through bodies of state power and bodies of local self-government.

The right to determine and change the constitutional order in Ukraine belongs exclusively to the people and shall not be usurped by the State, its bodies or officials.

No one shall usurp state power.”

Now pretend not to notice some contradictions in Article 5, but a revolution seems sufficient, according to their constitution. In fact the Ukrainian MP Igor Horilov I quoted previously said, “At the moment the members of the parliament are trying to establish the law, which aims to legitimize the new government.”

The Euromaidan was called “The Revolution of Dignity”. Journalists at the time said Yanukovych was “overthrown”. There is nothing in the Ukrainian constitution that describes an act (resolution) as sufficient to dismiss a President.

This I agree with your conclusions on, certainly far more than the idea that if Yanukovych’s removal was not legitimate the US would be forced to concede to the legitimacy of the occupation/separatist regimes in Crimea and the Donbas (when the Stimson Doctrine and similar international laws pretty clearly cover that).

The problem with that assessment is that Putin used that as a rationalization for nullifying the Budapest Memorandum.

“On 4 March the Russian president Vladimir Putin replied to a question on the violation of the Budapest Memorandum, describing the current Ukrainian situation as a revolution: “a new state arises, but with this state and in respect to this state, we have not signed any obligatory documents”.[31] …Russia suggested that the US was in violation of the Budapest Memorandum and described the Euromaidan as a US-instigated coup.”

This is of course, a convenient lie. And one that is underlined by the fact that not only did most organs of the Ukrainian Government (such as the Rada and even the Supreme Court) remain consistent in membership, but also the fact that much of the rhetoric was about things such as *repealing* the Kharkhiv Pact with Putin and *renegotiating* Tariffs, not claiming a Tabula Rasa.

And we know it was a convenient lie on Putin’s Part because

A: By this time the Kremlin had already deployed troops to Crimea outside of the designated areas.

B: In other legal matters such as the prosecution for the killing of a Ukrainian Soldier during the takeover of Crimea the Russian Government and its local functionaries continued to acknowledge the Ukrainian Government after Maidan as legal continuation of the previous one, especially in important matters such as legality for combat.

C: The timing of the declaration, coming after the occupation of Crimea.

D: The fact that Putin’s supposed opinion on the matter was not agreed to by the other signatories, the US and UK (as shown by the consistency of agreements not just with Budapest itself but also others like the now justly infamous DOD Senate-Scootabout for research in Ukraine signed under Yanukovych’s rival and predecessor Yuschenko and continued throughout).

Oh yeah, and the fact that revoking Budapest would justify surrendering control of the Soviet era nuclear weapons Russia took possession of as a result of Budapest. Whether that is giving them directly to Ukraine or surrendering them into some kind of trusteeship pending a successor to the “old” Ukrainian State the Kremlin made a deal with.

And which he still is mealy mouthed about.

I can’t imagine whhyyy Putin would not want to do that….

The way Yanukovych was ousted from power is a problem.

I agree, though I think that it would be more of a problem for internal Ukrainian politics and a functioning constitution were it not for the Kremlin making it a problem. This is again why I make reference to Bakiyev, whose overthrow was far more clearly outside the bounds of the law and basically is very similar to Moscow’s straw presentation of Euromaidan due to the lack of significant legislative push.

But the US and others did not make an issue of how Bakiyev was deposed, so business went on much as usual.

But people have every right to take issue with the at best irregular and ad hoc nature of what the Rada did. And for good reason. It is a legal patchwork held together by duct tape at best. But the same can be said for other things like Yanukovych’s own actions in the leadup to that.

Sorry about this. This will be a long one. But thank you for your patience and thoughtfulness.

I was going to post this in an open thread, because it deserves more attention. But…

Was the ouster of Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych a result of a revolution/coup and an illegal act by the Ukrainian parliament (Rada) and why does it matter?

Fair, and post where you judge it best Brian E.

Turtler maintains the actions of the Rada were legal.
Turtler’s full answer is here @6:52pm:
His short answer is the Rada was justified in removing Yanukovych because he abandoned his position and failed to return to Kiev to answer for his actions before the Rada. He could have sought protection from a friendly foreign government, or at least met in a zoom meeting.

And I stand by that judgement, especially given how Yanukovych was already on thin ice legally (as was pointed out by the Rada and the growing mutiny within the Regionnaires).

After the brutal events of Feb. 20, 2014, “President Viktor Yanukovych on February 21 agreed to an early presidential election; to reinstate the country’s 2004 constitution, which would curtail his powers; and to form a government of national unity.

That was rejected by the Maidan mob who insisted Yanukovych resign by the morning of Feb. 22 or they would storm the legislative buildings. The Berkut police (SBU) had stated they would no longer provide security. Yanukovych left/fled for Eastern Ukraine (initally Karkiv). The same day the Rada passed a resolution removing him from office.

Agreed except for a couple caveats. Firstly: Yanukovych fled Kyiv for Kharkhiv on Feb 21st. The vote to strip him of power went through on Feb 23rd. So the time frame was about 36-50 hours. So the Rada spent Feb 22nd wondering where he had gone, debating among themselves about how to get in contact with him, and debating matters like impeachment or incapacity removal, before slowly canvassing the votes and ultimately hosting it on the 23rd.

Which puts things in a rather different different complexion on the time frame and how events played out.

Secondly: The Rada itself remained under military and police guard during this time and the rejection of the agreement was hardly universal among the “Maidan Mob”, as shown by the divide between the more-street based militants and the more parliamentary based opposition, particularly those that outright signed it.

But beyond that I largely agree with that general outline.

I have seen no evidence there was an attempt to bring Yanukovych back to answer questions before the Rada.

The Rada does have some power to try and compel people to appear before it like most legislatures, but it isn’t primarily the Rada’s job to make sure that the President of Ukraine keeps his job or even to answer summons, though it does have some power to do so.

The US Legislature does have entities like the Sergeants at Arms for House and Senate with limited powers to compel people to appear in Congress through various means, but Ukraine either flat out did not have such an institution or had a much weaker one instituted only after 2013 (I am not sure on my research and am still checking). But even where such entities exist their powers of compulsion are limited. Even the Brandon Regime hasn’t reached the point where it has authorized Sergeants at Arms for the Congress to barge into houses and drive people to the Congress at gunpoint to testify.

Which brings us to the nature of legislative summons in both Ukraine at the time and elsewhere. They primarily function like subpoenas or summons to appear. The responsibility then is not on the body in question to compel appearance, but on the summoned to either appear or provide pressing reason why they do not. And summary judgements against those who fail to appear are long recognized in law and politics across the world,

So in essence, Yanukovych had a duty to either appear or provide pressing reasons why he could not. He failed to do either, which was identified (correctly) as a breach of duty.

If there was, voting to remove him from power the same day, certainly doesn’t constitute negotiating in good faith. Maybe Turtler can provide more information about this.

Firstly: again, the idea that the vote happened “the same day” is a fundamental misunderstanding of the course of events.

Yanukovych fled on the 21st.

The vote went through on the 23rd. And while preliminary preparations were done on the 22nd, that was only after a day of deliberation and waiting.

Moreover, the Rada is not under obligation to “negotiate in good faith” in regards to a legislative summons without justified notice of absence, for the same reason I wouldn’t be able to demand that the County Court negotiate the summons to appear on the deadline when I haven’t given notice. And even if we were to argue that the admittedly quick turnaround for removal from office was not negotiating in good faith, the Rada had already issued demands to appear before Feb 21st that Yanukovych was well aware of (and indeed appeared during the negotiations).

So I would say that vanishing without notice or some kind of means of contact in the face of a pending legislative summons was showing at least as much lack of “good faith” as the Rada responding.

There’s also a reason why disappearing without notice during the interlude before a legal appearance to answer questions is viewed very poorly and usually seen as circumstantial evidence of guilt or at least manifestly unethical behavior, another reason I argue that Yanukovych’s flight was one of his greatest practical mistakes.

d Here is my response to his reply.

The problem with that is there is no provision in the Ukraine constitution to remove a President in that manner.

Here are the relevant part of their constitution:
Article 108
The President of Ukraine exercises his or her powers until the assumption of office by the newly-elected President of Ukraine.
The powers of the President of Ukraine terminate prior to the expiration of term in
cases of:
1. resignation;
2. inability to exercise his or her powers for reasons of health;
3. removal from office by the procedure of impeachment;
4. death.

Indeed, which I do think points to a grievous flaw in the construction of the Ukrainian Constitution, at least as written, especially for a Parliamentary system as Ukraine is (even if mixed with a Presidential one). And the fact that they have *failed* to fix it even after Yanukovych’s removal is jarring, especially since it would make the removal a post-facto and even arbitrary act.

But I think that in context, this was an oversight in the constitution largely coming from the fact that they did not expect a President to fail to show up to preform his duties (which are myriad under the Ukrainian Constitution and some of which arguably would’ve allowed the Rada to engage in even more monkey business, such as Article 94, which could theoretically have been used to pass almost unlimited laws in the absence but technical maintenance of the President unless he was alerted and rejected them).

Similar to how the US Constitution originally had no text for what would happen if the sitting President was not merely indisposed but dead, the Ukrainian Constitution had no caveats for what would happen if a President refused to answer legal summons from the Rada and even as evading the other centers of government, but continued to maintain he occupied the office and was doing so in absence of a vote to impeach.

And a good way to showcase the problems with this would arrive is if the President outright vanished (as Yanukovych sort of did for several hours before his rough status and location was found out), necessitating their replacement. Technically this might fall under 2 or 4, but in a case where the status of the President is uncertain that can’t be judged. So what would be done?

And that’s before I get into the fact that parliamentary systems generally grant their governments much broader leeway when deciding the law and interpretations of the constitution (which our Founders identified as a problem, even as they originally closely aped it in the Articles of Confederation). as outlined in Article 85 (with points 3 and 13 being particularly relevant).

What’s more curious (besides the fact that they didn’t fix this wording in an attempt to provide legitimacy or at least consistency) is that this isn’t an issue with the Rada Deputy statute, which clearly includes being missing under the reasons why a Rada “Peoples’ Deputy” can be removed from office.in Article 81. Why the Presidential Article wasn’t Amended to patch the loopholes is beyond me.

In essence, the Rada found itself in a case not covered by the constitution and so used its law-making powers to quickly jam together an act utilizing its law-making powers to remove the President. Definitely not the intended way to remove a Ukrainian President (since it was closest to removal for health, but wasn’t based on health), but also usually well within the discretion given to Parliamentary Governments.

My bigger issues with this are

A: As a One off law, it indicates a power of the legislature that can easily be abused.

B: Even after nearly a decade, the Rada has not tried to fix the wording of the Constitution to try and patch the obvious hole re: the status of the President of Ukraine.

That does nothing to soothe me and is something I’d happily point to in terms of Ukrainian Government and Law not being anywhere near as settled as they need to be. And why I would have preferred them to have pursue Impeachment mundanely, taking more time if need be.

But given the integral role that the President has in the Ukrainian Constitution and how Yanukovych vanished in the face of pending summons to appear before the Rada, I can’t fault them TOO Much for *that*, unlike their failure to fix this to make sure it isn’t as abusable.

At no time did the Rada seek the counsel or approval of their action from another branch of the government, the Ukraine Supreme Court.

They did seek the counsel of the Supreme Court, but not its approval, which is another weakness I find with the procedure. And which complaints that the Supreme Court’s staff was corrupt or overly partial to Yanukovych (while I find credible due to the actions and inactions of men like Yaroslav Romanyuk), do not change that.

But that goes back to the broad sovereignty parliament exercises, as well as the nature of the oath officials take to the Ukrainian Constitution and the nature of violations of it.

The Rada didn’t follow the constitutional process of impeachment

Agreed.

because of the nature of the Maidan mob demanding immediate action. Certainly fits the definition of a revolution/coup.

Not agreed. Which again is why I keep pounding on the importance of the timeline. Yanukovych was not removed from power legislatively because of the ultimatum of the Maidan radicals, at least not directly, though that doubtless helped. That happened because Yanukovych disappeared just after the agreement was inked in the face of pending questions form the Rada.

Which is again why rather than voting to remove him on the 22nd, the Rada spent it trying to ascertain his position and status and debating what to do, which gradually crystalized into a push to remove him, but which didn’t happen until the 23rd.

Which is important because it undercuts a central argument of the “Coup/Revolution” that Yanukovych was removed in accordance with the demands of the Maidan Radicals and according to their timeline, and that the Rada was incapable of asserting its will independently of them.

So the Rada was certainly engaging in a power grab using a selective reading of the Constitution and it would have been much better if they had used impeachment, but the flaws in the constitution’s composition helped undermine this. Especially since the Constitution’s writers understandably but unfortunately didn’t incorporate any text for what would happen if the President was of good health, refusing to administer his duties, but continuing to maintain he had the powers of office.

So gray area.

The Rada also did not have the necessary votes to pass a bill of impeachment.

Agreed.

As it was, parliament members from Yanukovych’s “Party of Regions” were beaten and coerced to vote for the resolution removing Yanukovych.

UNLIKELY for a couple of reasons.

Firstly: If Rada members from the Regionnaires could be beaten and coerced to vote for the resolution removing Yanukovych (under the eyes of the police and military tasked with guarding the premises), why couldn’t they be beaten and coerced to agree to a resolution for his impeachment?

After all, the Constitutional Composition of the Rada is outlined in Article 76, and Article 111 specifies impeachment requires three quarters of the constitutional composition of the Rada. The actual vote to remove passed with 328 Yeas, or about 10 short of the full constitutional composition of the Rada with 6 present but not voting, and well North of the ratio in quorum. So why not beat the remaining six to get them to vote Yea too and hunt down four of the remaining to do it?

This is where the “The Rada members were tortured and intimidated to vote for the bill” narrative starts to fall apart.

Secondly: We have live footage of essentially every member of the Rada and even those in the vicinity of the building from there, and there’s remarkably little in the form of beatings or wounds.

The small caveat here is that there WERE melees and beatings in the Rada during this time in the form of brawls, especially given the charged atmosphere, but it was hardly a systematic campaign of torture to force people to change their votes. They also were relatively rare in number and distributed among opposition supporters as well, and often over personal issues or plays for power (apparently the Svoboda deputies were known for being particularly combative rear ends).

Most of those fervently opposed to the vote simply did not show up (which also had the side benefit of denying 3/4ths of Constitutional Composition needed for Impeachment, ANOTHER flaw of the Ukrainian Constitution the subsequent governments haven’t tried to address).

I MOSTLY chalk this down to “Parliament Problems be Parliament Problems.” Though I can’t fault anybody who reads a lot more into it. Which is why I don’t emphasize it here in comparison to my point regarding the literal forensics about the health of the Rada members and how the supposed “torture” was about a vote to remove rather than impeachment, which is kind of setting one’s sights low if the goal was to legitimate Yanukovych’s removal.

In a justification for the actions taken by the Rada to remove Yanukovych one day after the Maidan protestors/rioters had rejected the compromise, a Polish organization, OSW, included these points in their article about the events (this in an article justifying the removal of Yanukovych):

“Some of the actions of the new authorities do constitute abuses of the law, but can be justified by the emergency situation, which was not provided for in the Constitution.”

This I find leery at best, even if in part it is true for the reasons I mentioned, especially given the poor formulation of the Ukrainian Constitution’s terms. And this is also why I point to the failure to remedy many of the systematic flaws of the Constitution by the Maidan Governments to be a major black mark and cause for concern.

“The parliament’s actions did not constitute a coup d’etat. Although some of them were unconstitutional, but these were actions of the indisputably legitimate parliament. One can at most speak of a ‘parliamentary coup’,”

I agree broadly with the last sentence. The big issue I see was that the Constitution quite bluntly did not account for this kind of situation (which is admittedly pretty common even in our own cases), but unlike Tippecanoe’s death where there was decently broad support for the solution, it wasn’t present here. The other issue is that rightfully or wrongly, Parliaments are generally granted more trust to institute laws than their peers.

“Restoring the Constitution by means of act was contrary to its provisions,”

This I think is a somewhat fair point though obviously a very slippery slope, especially given the issues of competence and integrity regarding the likes of Romanyuk. But on the whole I do think the Rada should have tried to continue impeachment.

“Similarly, the reference to the president “voluntarily removing himself from his duties” was illegal because the constitution did not provide for such a form for the termination of the Head of State’s duties.”

I think illegal is harder to justify because of the very broad scope of the Rada’s powers, especially in terms of making laws.

“The use of the phrase “expressing the sovereign will of the Ukrainian Nation” in the resolution concerning Yulia Tymoshenko refers to the provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine, proclaiming that “the only source of power in Ukraine is the people”, and “the right to determine and change the constitutional order in Ukraine belongs exclusively to the people, and cannot be usurped by the State” (Article 5). In revolutionary conditions these statutes acquire a new meaning, becoming not just a formal justification, but a real basis for the actions of the institutions of state.”

Indeed, which is also why I view this as leery at best. And I freely admit this was not an impeachment, nor was this a regular procedure (not even in terms of the laws of the Constitution later). But this was not a normal situation and the Rada was hardly the only side that was involved in this, as the Anti-Protest Laws and the actions of the President, Constitutional Court, and Rada leading up to this showed.

It’s also why I do think it was a mistake for Yanukovych to flee without word altogether, precisely because by at least appearing to follow the agreement and indicating a willingness to answer the Rada’s questions (under advisement from legal teams of course), he would have been able to short-circuit much of this.

So the justification for the removal of the President basically comes down to the revolutionary right of the people to overthrow the ruling power!

Which is a right our own Constitution fully recognizes, and which was particularly notable coming from the one directly elected branch of the government. Especially in light of the gaps in the Ukrainian Constitution meaning that a President could (and theoretically still can!!!) go on the lam, drink martinis at Cancun, and ignore all summons and duties for years on end without actually being eligible for removal under the four criteria for it.

This overthrow of the President by a mob certainly wouldn’t have been accepted by the Western government if the results hadn’t favored Western policies.

Again, the President wasn’t “overthrown by a mob.” If he had been, the timing would have lined up with that of the Maidan radicals. Which is why I reference back to the chronology.

Moreover, the fact that Yanukovych was incapable of sustaining the loyalty of his own party in Parliament (as shown by the mutiny in the Regionaires and pressure to sign the agreement even before the Army mention) underlines it.

Furthermore, this claim isn’t even true.

I point to the Melon Revolution of 2010 in Krgyzstan, where “President”/Dictator Bakiyev was removed from power by an ACTUAL armed mob (and a remarkably small one at that, with a few thousand), that had been encouraged by – among other things- Kremlin media outlets encouraging civil disobedience, in part to undermine the presence of the US Air Base Bakiyev had allowed there.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2010/04/14/an-american-opportunity-in-kyrgyzstan/

Western diplomatic reactions were cautious and muted, but generally positive and receptive. And certainly did not involve invading Kyrgyzstan in order to protect the “Transit Base” at Manas.

Of course I can imagine why this particular incident is memory holed, especially by the Kremlin. For one, Central Asia’s already pretty freaking remote and poorly documented and understood much like inland Subsaharan Africa, so few people remembered it to forget. For two, the situation very obviously shows a chain of events that is actually like what the Kremlin claims Euromaidan was like – since the President actually was overthrown by an armed mob and forced to resign under duress before going into exile – but with a supposedly pro-American (really Monkey in the Middle) Dictator being deposed by an undecided and somewhat pro-Russian mob.

Thirdly and perhaps most importantly: That close proximity damages attempts by the Kremlin to justify its actions precisely because it puts them in sharp contrast to the US Non-Reaction to events in Kyrgyzstan, even though they were accompanied by rhetoric about closing the Transit Base.

Which is one reason why the US was able to successfully negotiate to keep the base open for years to come with the new government.

(I’m sure one could argue that Kyrgyzstan is nowhere near as important to the US as Ukraine is to Russia, and I’d agree, but that’s a matter of realpolitik rather than the actual law.)

And it had to be deemed legal by the West. Otherwise it justifies parts of the Donbas and Crimea for their declarations of independence soon after.

This is a legal and logical nonsequitor. The Stimson Doctrine is not dependent on US recognition of a given government as legitimate or legally constituted. It outright condemns and refuses to acknowledge any territorial claims or governments constituted as a result of foreign invasion.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/mukden-incident#:~:text=however%2C%20proved%20ineffective.-,The%20Stimson%20Doctrine,which%20the%20United%20States%20subscribed.

Which is unquestionably what we saw in Crimea and the Donbas, and which Putin has stopped pretending about in the former case.

Which is also why for all the relatively trite Soviet and Nazi comparisons (fitting ones I admit, especially in the case of the latter given rigged referendums and force) I often go back to referencing the Japanese occupation regimes established in the 1930s and early 1940s. Because they are roughly as (il)legitimate in the eyes of the Stimson Doctrine and international law even IF (and this is a big, BEEEEG if) they are more genuinely popular.

In any case, the US did not have much trouble (for reasons of obvious bias among others) regarding the Rada’s actions as the stopgap measure they were.

Anyway…

@Amadeus 48

…and then there is this.

https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/09/nordstream.html

I’ll take hydrate plug for $500, Alex.

Worth a read. This explanation is totally in line with Russian maintenance practices.

That was my working assumption as well, until the Swedes specifically declared it an attack. Of course the Swedes could be lying but I struggle to imagine why, especially since even if it was an attack it is at least somewhat convenient for most if not all parties to go with the “Yeah, it was a Hydrate Plug” line just for political convenience.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/traces-explosives-found-nord-stream-pipelines-sweden-says-2022-11-18/

Hydrate Plugs and other natural causes still rattle around in the back of my mind as a possibility, but it is no longer the most likely explanation in my opinion due to the aforementioned reason.

But Brain E is focused on the martyr Yanklovitch (oops, he ain’t dead).

Brain E didn’t choose his Ukrainian “patriot,” Vlad did that. Sad.

The Ukrainian constitution only allowed resignation, impeachment, health and death as reasons for the President to not serve out his term.

Some (not Western powers) have used Article 5 as a justification. It’s the only method that is legitimate as expressed in the constitution.

Article 5
“Ukraine is a republic.

No one shall usurp state power.”

Now pretend not to notice some contradictions in Article 5, but a revolution seems sufficient, according to their constitution. In fact the Ukrainian MP Igor Horilov I quoted previously said, “At the moment the members of the parliament are trying to establish the law, which aims to legitimize the new government.”

The Euromaidan was called “The Revolution of Dignity”. Journalists at the time said Yanukovych was “overthrown”. There is nothing in the Ukrainian constitution that describes an act (resolution) as sufficient to dismiss a President.

The problem with that assessment is that Putin used that as a rationalization for nullifying the Budapest Memorandum.

“On 4 March the Russian president Vladimir Putin replied to a question on the violation of the Budapest Memorandum, describing the current Ukrainian situation as a revolution: “a new state arises, but with this state and in respect to this state, we have not signed any obligatory documents”.[31] …Russia suggested that the US was in violation of the Budapest Memorandum and described the Euromaidan as a US-instigated coup.”

The way Yanukovych was ousted from power is a problem.

Don’t trot out the genocide against ethnic Russians in the Donbass trope because out of the other side of the Russian propaganda mouth, Ukrainans are all Russians. But then you have to fall back onto the Ukrainians are Nazis. You tried the Nazi trick already.

Just an agreement giving up nuclear weapons in exchange for a pledge to honor Ukrainian territorial integrity. An agreement kept until Crimea, Donbas, and finally the big meatball, Feb 24, 2022.

I’ll leave it to Turtler to make all the nuanced, and other, corrections which you will ignore.

Roosia wants. Brain E understands.

Otay, any more fine Putin hairs to split? It was an agreement; an agreement that was not honored, eh? And you have the balls to whine about Yanukovitch?
It takes all kinds to carry Putin’s water. There was no treaty saying Roosia wouldn’t invade Crimea either, was there?

You have learned nothing, it seems, from Turtler.

The same day the Rada passed the resolution firing Yanukovych, officials also announced to the crowd that they needed to unite Ukraine in the east.

Ukraine used militias, basically private armies to go after the separatists in the Donbas. It was sometime later that they were incorporated into the regular army and national guard. So basically it was gang warfare, with “irregulars” on both sides. Recipe for bad things.

As to the US involvement, here is a clip from President Obama on Feb. 19 warning the Yanukovych government not to use force on peaceful protesters, and the protesters to remain peaceful.

He also said he thought there could still be a “peaceful transition”. What do you suppose he was referring to?

Yanukovych agreed to the early elections, reduce Presidential power, and early elections on Feb. 21, and only left after the Maidan mob rejected it. How could Obama know Yanukovych would leave Kyiv that night/early am?

As to those peaceful protesters, four Berkut riot police were killed and 21 wounded before 9 am on Feb. 20, before the day ended up with 49 protestors killed that day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SftUiaHst58