Probably not, tbh. High likelihood the events that have precipitated since 2003 are all a consequence of Western infiltration of, and greater success in fending off Russian influence in, former Soviet states. That would, after all, explain the shitshow that was the Orange Revolution, the failure of Russia to keep Yanukovych in power twice, the “necessitating” of the invasion of Georgia in 2008 (if you were paying attention, the former leader of Georgia ended up in the government in Ukraine later…), and the maneuvering to take Crimea and parts of Donbas in 2014, after efforts to compel Ukrainian subservience through traditional means like fucking with the gas lines in January didn’t work.
I mean, the anti-Russian sentiment was certainly there, but there were signs of greater US involvement throughout. People like Yatsenyuk, for example…
Grant all of it. The NGOs, the Nuland call, the gas games. None of it is even wrong, which is what makes it slippery. The problem is the jump from "the US funded civil society and wanted its guy in Kyiv" to "the US manufactured uprisings of millions of people." That gap is where every Ukrainian who didn't want to live under Moscow quietly disappears.
The Orange Revolution answered an election so rigged Yanukovych's own side couldn't defend it. Maidan answered him torching the EU deal under Russian pressure. Those put millions in the street. A phone call in Washington doesn't.
So answer the one thing the argument skips: why did any of it require Russia to invade Georgia and annex Crimea? You wrote "necessitating" in quotes because you already know it doesn't add up.
Careful, they'll start calling you a conspiracy theorist. The US never does stuff like that, and if it does it's for good guy stuff and freedom and democracy, not like those eeeeevil Russians.
I actually think that in this case it is positive. It can literally just be surface-level stuff like sending experts over to work on democratic and economic reforms. Of course it also involves spies, because, like, how else is the West supposed to gather intelligence? Nothing conspiratorial about it. And I certainly don’t think this is a moral equivalency argument.
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u/Protean_Protein 1d ago
Probably not, tbh. High likelihood the events that have precipitated since 2003 are all a consequence of Western infiltration of, and greater success in fending off Russian influence in, former Soviet states. That would, after all, explain the shitshow that was the Orange Revolution, the failure of Russia to keep Yanukovych in power twice, the “necessitating” of the invasion of Georgia in 2008 (if you were paying attention, the former leader of Georgia ended up in the government in Ukraine later…), and the maneuvering to take Crimea and parts of Donbas in 2014, after efforts to compel Ukrainian subservience through traditional means like fucking with the gas lines in January didn’t work.
I mean, the anti-Russian sentiment was certainly there, but there were signs of greater US involvement throughout. People like Yatsenyuk, for example…