The Ukraine constitution clearly lays out the methods of removing a President before his term ends. None of those conditions were met. Simply voting him out of office isn’t one of them.

Turtler alludes to the corruption of Yanukovych and his deputies as a rational. Article 85 allows the Rada the authority to remove the deputies, but does not include the president. It specifically states: “10. removing the President of Ukraine from office in accordance with the special procedure (impeachment) established by Article 111 of this Constitution”.
The only legal method would have been to finish the agreement brokered by Germany and France which Yanukovych’s power was significantly reduced and new elections were moved up. He fled before signing the document, for reason of safety. To consider his removal a day later as a dereliction of duty is stretching it, especially considering he was still in Ukraine at that point.

As to the mishandling of the eastward expansion of NATO, I’ve linked to interviews with Michael O’Hanlon, Fiona Hill and Joshua Shifrinson– all believe aspects were mishandled. Hill said the raising the issue Ukraine’s membership in Bucharest “was not a good idea at all”…..”shouldn’t even been under consideration in Bucharest”.

The Slavic Spring is a coup,

That’s literally the only thing you listed that is at least SOMEWHAT defensible , and even that ignores the importance of the Ukrainian Parliament, its divides with the executive under Yanukovych, and the latter’s often criminal actions.

That along with glaring weaknesses in the Ukrainian Constitution (many of which aren’t fixed even years later, to my ire) meant both sides went improv.

a denial of essential services,

Because it is not the JOB of an invaded nation to UNILATERALLY SUPPLY THE ENEMY OCCUPATION.

Do you think the US government stopping all grain and steel barges going down the Potomac to Tidewater Virginia was a “denial of essential services”? Am I supposed to ignore how Tidewater Virginia at the time had risen up in (actual, more or less organic and local) revolt against the Union and had attacked it in a state of war?

Similar issues here.

The Ukrainian government has little incentive to unilaterally provide “essential services” to support a Russian occupation of its territory even if it had the resources to. For the same reason it’s gratuitously stupid to insist the KMT being bombed endlessly in Chonqqing had an obligation to continue paying the Mayor of Shanghai under Japanese occupation.

The Ukrainian government decided to call the Kremlin’s bluff by pointing out that for all its grandiose propaganda about how Russia looks after “its own” and how much nicer things were in the old days, it isn’t fit to actually administer the people and territory it conquers (especially not through warlord goons like Girkin).

a military/paramilitary axis assaulting Ukrainians for over nine years,

Yes, by the Russian government and assorted paramilitaries.

Who I remind people began shooting first, as Crimea and the Donbas showed.

and an apartheid regime

Ok Dipshit, you want to continue peddling this lie, time to prove it.

What is the Ukrainian equivalent to the Population Registration Act of 1950?

Do you even know what that is?

Ukraine’s no barrel of flowers but its President is a native Russophone of Jewish ancestry. Not exactly Stephan Bandera come again. And even the local Neo-Fascists in Right Sector happily recruit ethnic Russian Russophones.

In other words, even the local murderous totalitarians have a level of integration far beyond any, ANY institution in Apartheid South Africa.

with “benefits” in the World War Spring series conceived, perhaps, and birthed by Obama, Biden, and Decepticons from Tripoli to Cairo to Damascus to Baghdad to Kabul to Kiev.

Riiight.

Because apparently Assad and Gaddafi have absolutely no authority or autonomy, and had absolutely no choice to decide to mass murder prisoners, let reports of rape of imprisoned out, and generally turn their countries into war zones?

I despise Obama and co but this is absurd.

I think Biden has NOW returned from feathering the trail of the Maidan-gate collusion in Kiev. Oh, well. They have Biden/Maidan-gate, while we contend with the attempted Jan 6 fire and Dezi progression.

On this much it is actually true.

It wasn’t illegal and the expansion of NATO was not mishandled.

Rufus T. Firefly:

Thanks, especially coming from someone who has walked the path ahead of me.

I am pleased with my progress through the novice phase, but it has become clearer what a long-term undertaking this is and one that is never truly completed.

In case you are curious about the Input Hypothesis, here’s a decent web article on Krashen excerpted for output:
__________________________________

But what about output? Aren’t speaking and writing important, too?

–Ramsay Lewis, “What Is Comprehensible Input and Why Does It Matter for Language Learning?”
https://www.leonardoenglish.com/blog/comprehensible-input

And our adversary is Ukraine, not Russia or China? Otay, Senor.

How unique is the Russophile view of Ukrainian affairs and recent history.

“Denial of services,” LOL.

The Slavic Spring is a coup, a denial of essential services, a military/paramilitary axis assaulting Ukrainians for over nine years, and an apartheid regime with “benefits” in the World War Spring series conceived, perhaps, and birthed by Obama, Biden, and Decepticons from Tripoli to Cairo to Damascus to Baghdad to Kabul to Kiev. I think Biden has NOW returned from feathering the trail of the Maidan-gate collusion in Kiev. Oh, well. They have Biden/Maidan-gate, while we contend with the attempted Jan 6 fire and Dezi progression.

I’m not puzzled at all about your fixation with Yanukivitch; “its all you got.”

Obstinacy. You be you.

“We underestimated how much antipathy to NATO’s existence there was in Russia” – US ambassador Stephen Pifer (1998-2000)

This is a common theme amongst our foreign policy community. Whether it’s Pifer or Fiona Hill or John Bolton, the message is the same– mistakes were made. Putin made it very clear in 2007-08. We didn’t believe him. He made it crystal clear in Dec. 2021. We believed him, but then ignored him saying bad things would happen if Russia entered Ukraine.

om wonders why I’m so focused on the events surrounding the illegal overthrow of pro-Russian President Yanukovych in 2014. Because these events and our clumsy handling of NATO expansion in the late 90’s and onward have created the dynamic that’s playing out now.

Turtler makes the point that these countries sought out membership to NATO, but it’s also true we had no obligations to accept them and could have prevented their membership. Could we have given them security assurances while not allowing NATO military hardware to move into these countries? Very possibly.

Whatever the outcome of this conflict, it’s likely we’ll have to come up with some arrangement like that. Given the influence of militaristic nationalist political influences in Ukraine at this point, we should stop short of NATO membership. It’s very possible they would trigger future hostilities with Russia, if any territory in the east or south is ceded to Russia as part of a peace plan.

Did NATO promise Russia never to expand to the east? | DW News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVt-WXTLIZM