Of course, I don't deny that.
But, YOU DO deny that driving a democratically-elected out of office was NOT the will of the people in Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk. They overwhelming voted for Yanukovych and EVERY MORAL RIGHT TO SEEK INDEPENDENCE AND JOIN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.
The population there was under no obligation to be discriminated against, persecuted and murdered by Ukrainian nationalists and neo-Nazis that hated them.
And, if you think the Russians were going to tolerate being cutoff from a naval base they had maintained in Crimea is 1783, you're out of your mind.
Of course, we, NATO and CIA were absolutely willing participates in encouraging the Maiden coup, not because we gave a damn about the people of Ukraine, but because we wanted to install a puppet government our elite could profit from and because we wanted to hurt Russia.
That you're denying all that and the CIA's dirty role in it all is laughable.
The CIA is every bit as corrupt at the FBI.
We've gone from using the CIA and our influence to free other nations from tyranny to using it to enriching our elite.
Would Great Britain be justified in invading Ireland because the Irish speak English?
As far as I can see from reading, (and I've read a lot), Russophones in the Donbas weren't unhappy with living under the Ukrainian government until Putin's "green men" showed up. Then they "voted" to secede from Ukraine under duress. In "elections" that nobody but Russia thinks were free and fair.
Claiming that Moscow has a right to annex Crimea has no more legitimacy than the British would have by demanding to annex Bombay because they once had a large naval establishment there.
Britain, France, Belgium, Netherlands et.al. have all relinquished their empires. The USA voluntarily gave the Philippines full independence after WW2. Only Moscow refuses to accept that the era of empires is OVER, and demands to re-construct theirs by force of arms, at the expense of the peoples who were finally freed in 1991. This of course means nothing to you. As far as you Russians are concerned, might makes right, period, end of story. Has been so since the Mongol period ended. Which is why western nations oppose you, why NATO still exists, and why more nations in your proximity have asked to join NATO since 2022. ASKED to join. The NATO charter does not allow it to force itself on anyone. (Another lie you keep promoting....that NATO was expanding itself into Ukraine. Any and all contacts with NATO were/are at Ukraine's instigation. Had to be. The events of 2014 and 2022 confirmed their fears. And everybody else's