Overthrowing a President of a country will have consequences, regardless of whether he was popular or not. The level of the reaction might be higher or lower based on the populous’ attitude toward him. But someone voted for him, and liked his policies. I’m not sure why you can’t see that.

Representative from Germany and France negotiated a deal where Yanukovych’s cabinet would be replaced by opposing parties and there would be an early election. Yet the rioters rejected that agreement and said if he didn’t resign by the next day, they would storm the Rada and kill him.

They had an off-ramp. There would have been early elections. The protesters won. And yet they couldn’t accept the peaceful transfer and instead created a constitutional crisis.

As to the Berkut violence– their brutality was an issue early on. But at least 13 Berkut police were killed during the final days, so bullets were flying both directions and some/many of the protestors were killed by Maidan snipers.

If you watch videos of that final day of riots, it was very much a war zone.

Ivan Katchanovski, professor at the University of Ottawa, wrote a book about the Maidan Revolution and it’s aftermath. PDF is available at the link, if you’re interested in a detailed version of events surrounding the overthrow of Yanukovych.

The Ukrainian parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from the posi-
tion of the president of Ukraine under the false pretext that he abandoned
his presidential duties and ?ed Ukraine because of his responsibility
for the massacre. But the decision violated the Ukrainian Constitu-
tion and the vote lacked constitutional majority, while many deputies
from the Yanukovych Party of Regions and the Communist Party voted
under threat of violence, in particular, by the far-right. For example, the
commander of the far-right-linked group of the Maidan snipers admitted
that his group forced certain members of the parliament to participate
in the votes to dismiss Yanukovych and his government…

The Maidan Massacre in Ukraine: The Mass Killing that Changed the World
https://www.academia.edu/123427913/The_Maidan_Massacre_in_Ukraine_The_Mass_Killing_that_Changed_the_World

I call that bold talk from someone who deigned to flash her cootch on camera for all the world to see.

That was a fascinating video, so I looked up some of the related posts.
This is the source article from Wired, which was actually from March 2024:
https://www.wired.com/story/jeffrey-epstein-island-visitors-data-broker-leak/
“A WIRED investigation uncovered coordinates collected by a controversial data broker that reveal sensitive information about visitors to an island once owned by Epstein, the notorious sex offender.”

This is the video that was in your linked Tweet, which was released on 11/22/2024, and a transcript.
https://www.wired.com/video/watch/we-tracked-every-visitor-to-epstein-island

The same video, on YouTube, which is how it was embedded in your linked Tweet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjPHq-Ez0nc

A search for “wired epstein island” will turn up lots of punditry about the video, although not much about the original text article.

I note that the video presenter made a point of informing his viewers on how to protect their own phone-related privacy.

The expertise about Trump voters shown by the writers / interviewees of the New Yorker, quoted by Ed Driscoll at Insty, is very much on a par with the wisdom of this charming Democrat.

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2024/11/26/sharon-stone-trump-won-because-of-uneducated-americans-who-dont-travel-abroad/

Speaking recently at a press conference at the Torino Film Festival in Italy, …Stone kicked things off with by comparing the incoming second Trump administration to fascism under Benito Mussolini.

“Italy has seen fascism. Italy has seen these things. You guys, you understand what happens. You have seen this before. My country is in its adolescence. Adolescence is very arrogant. Adolescence thinks it knows everything. Adolescence is naive and ignorant and arrogant, and we are in our ignorant, arrogant adolescence,” she said.

The actress then gave her description of the kinds of people she thinks voted for Trump.

“We haven’t seen this before in our country. So Americans who don’t travel, who 80 percent don’t have a passport, who are uneducated, are in their extraordinary naivete.”

I guess I had better turn in my 2 diplomas, AesopSpouse’s 3 sheepskins (well, at least one is real vellum), and both our passports, which have taken us to Europe several times, Japan, and India.
Also a total of 7 university degrees belonging to our sons, although I will grant than none of them have traveled abroad yet.

Ms Stone was calling the wrong party “adolescent” IMO, although the Democrats, at least its leaders, are not naïve.
However, I would rather be naïve than ignorant and arrogant.

And Lee Smith is who? “On the internet no one knows you are a dog.”

It was never codified in a treaty, but assurances were made.

From the transcript of the talks between Baker and Gorbachev:

Baker: And the last point. NATO is the mechanism for securing the U.S. presence in Europe. If NATO is liquidated, there will be no such mechanism in Europe. We understand that not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.
We believe that consultations and discussions within the framework of the “two + four” mechanism should guarantee that Germany’s unification will not lead to NATO’s military organization spreading to the east.

**************************

Baker: I want to ask you a question, and you need not answer it right now. Supposing unification takes place, what would you prefer: a united Germany outside of NATO, absolutely independent 9 and without American troops; or a united Germany keeping its connections with NATO, but with the guarantee that NATO’s jurisprudence or troops will not spread east of the present boundary?

Gorbachev: We will think everything over. We intend to discuss all these questions in depth at the leadership level. It goes without saying that a broadening of the NATO zone is not acceptable.

Baker: We agree with that.

This is a sidebar of the transcript from the Gorbachev Foundation:

“The key exchange takes place when Baker asks whether Gorbachev would prefer “a united Germany outside of NATO, absolutely independent and without American troops; or a united Germany keeping its connections with NATO, but with the guarantee that NATO’s jurisdiction or troops will not spread east of the present boundary.” Thus, in this conversation, the U.S. secretary of state three times offers assurances that if Germany were allowed to unify in NATO, preserving the U.S. presence in Europe, then NATO would not expand to the east. Interestingly, not once does he use the term GDR or East Germany or even mention the Soviet troops in East Germany. For a skilled negotiator and careful lawyer, it seems very unlikely Baker would not use specific terminology if in fact he was referring only to East Germany.

The Soviet leader responds that “[w]e will think everything over. We intend to discuss all these questions in depth at the leadership level. It goes without saying that a broadening of the NATO zone is not acceptable.” Baker affirms: “We agree with that.””

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16117-document-06-record-conversation-between

It is not an expression of support for Putin’s grotesque actions to try to understand why it seemed worthwhile for him to risk hundreds of billions of dollars, the lives of thousands of servicemen, and the possible stability of his own regime in order to invade his neighbor. After all, Putin’s reputation until this moment has always been as a shrewd ex-KGB man who eschewed high-risk gambles in favor of sure things backed by the United States, like entering Syria and then escalating forces there. So why has he adopted exactly the opposite strategy here, and chosen the road of open high-risk confrontation with the American superpower?

Yes, Putin wants to prevent NATO from expanding to Russia’s border. But the larger answer is that he finds the U.S. government’s relationship with Ukraine genuinely threatening. That’s because for nearly two decades, the U.S. national security establishment under both Democratic and Republican administrations has used Ukraine as an instrument to destabilize Russia, and specifically to target Putin.

While the timing of Putin’s attack on Ukraine is no doubt connected to a variety of factors, including the Russian dictator’s read on U.S. domestic politics and the preferences of his own superpower sponsor in Beijing, the sense that Ukraine poses a meaningful threat to Russia is not a product of Putin’s paranoia—or of a sudden desire to restore the power and prestige of the Soviet Union, however much Putin might wish for that to happen. Rather, it is a geopolitical threat that has grown steadily more pressing and been employed with greater recklessness by Americans and Ukrainians alike over the past decade.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/ukraines-deadly-gamble

There was never any such promise. No such agreement has ever been produced and no less authorities than the last president and foreign minister of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze, respectively, have stated flat out that no such promise was ever made. This non-promise was affirmed by the Russian-Ukraine Friendship Treaty of 1997 in which Russia formally agreed that Ukraine could join any bilateral or multilateral organization it wished.

”Yes there are NATO countries now closer to Russia than our current bases, but they are still farther than Ukraine…”

First of all, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are all much closer to the Moscow-St. Petersburg axis than Ukraine is, and they’ve been in NATO for decades.

Second and more importantly, Ukraine was and is ineligible to join NATO. To prevent Ukraine from joining NATO all Russia had to do was…absolutely nothing. So obviously this war is not about NATO.

”The Donbas and Crimea had heavily voted for…closer ties to the Common Union. They were more ambivalent to joining the EU.”

The Ukrainian parliament passed the Ukraine EU Accession Act in 2013 by a 10-1 margin. It had overwhelming support throughout the country.

”Once Yanukovych was overthrown…”

What is your obsession with Yanukovych? No one of any consequence in Ukraine wants him back after his security goons opened fire on peaceful protesters, killing 128 of them. In the face of the resulting hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians taking to the streets he fled the country, was disowned by his own political party, was impeached by a unanimous vote of the parliament (328 to 0), was tried by the Ukrainian Supreme Court, convicted, and removed from office. He left office with a 4.9% approval rating. That’s four POINT nine percent.

No one of any consequence outside of Russia wants him back in Kiev. It would be like Britain invading America in 1984 to put Richard Nixon back in power.

”While it’s true that only about 30% of the Donbas favored secession…I thought the Donbas and Crimea should have been allowed to leave…”

So you want the 30% to be able to dictate to the 70% what country they must live in.

”Instead of trying to reach an understanding of Russia’s concerns and a solution, we have appeared to just be telling Russia ‘tough luck’.”

Russia’s concern is that unless it has possession of all of Ukraine, Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and half of Poland, it can’t defend itself against invasion from the west. That may actually be true, but that doesn’t mean that Russia gets to conquer those countries and ethnically cleanse the people living there. Lebensraum is not a legitimate reason for war.

So, yes, we rightfully told Russia “Tough luck.”

Niketas, both sides were wrong. As I said, the 2022 invasion was illegal, but at every turn refused to recognize their position that potentially placing nuclear/non-nuclear missiles that close to Russia was unnecessarily provocative.

Brain E will fall back on the ouster of Yanukovitch. Oh the dread potentiality of NATO nukes in Ukraine, a thought crime? Funny, Russia has nukes in Kaliningrad (IIRC) should Russia retake all the Baltics because as part of NATO they could already have nukes? Russia used to own/rule/subjugate the Baltics Brain E. Why shouldn’t Vlad take back what was his?

Apologist and cheerleader?

In the Ukrainian perspective Russia has been waging war on Ukraine since 2014, but even you can’t deny that.

I’m 3/4 through the translation into French. I read the original when I was 23. All I remembered was the sappy love story and my intoxication with Hemingway’s prose.

Not the horrors of WW I, both physically and morally.

I just finished the section where the narrator, as an American officer who volunteered for an Italian ambulance unit, is compelled to shoot a deserting soldier. Immediately thereafter, he is due to be shot as an officer separated from his men by an Italian kangaroo martial court.

The 1932 movie with Gary Cooper is quite good, particularly when it sticks to the Hemingway. The film softens the edges of Hemingway’s radicalism. For instance, the narrator’s affair with the nurse is justified by a military priest spontaneously officiating a marriage rite for them.

Hard to believe that world is a century behind us. Yet the ripples are still felt.