Ukrainians protested Yanukovych not fulfilling his campaign promises of closer economic ties to the EU as they had the right to do under the Ukrainian Constitution. He ordered that the police open fire on them. 108 Ukrainians were killed. Then scared to death about what he had done he fled the country with a big percentage of the Ukrainian treasury. He abandoned his job. The next day the Parliament voted to remove him from office, as the law allowed. It wasn’t a coup, the man abandoned his job. Three months later the people of the country held an election and elected someone who was willing to show up.
Yanukovych, a russian puppet, ran away whilst he was still President and relinquished his role, never returning to Ukraine.
Yanukovich could have stayed, he could have plead his case. He could have made the public arguement for why he did what he did. He didn’t do that though. Instead he burned a bunch of documents, packed a suitcase full of cash and fled in the middle of the night.
There was no armed uprising
There was no fifth column.
There wasn’t even a singular political leader who opposed him who stepped into his role. Ukraine had a short lived provisional government until a new election was held. Their constitution was never suspended
Ukraine, like every other democracy, has acts in place that deal with an absent leader and enacted them accordingly.
Russia decided to call this a coup in an effort to de-legitimise the Ukrainian government because it objected to the removal of its puppet. It did not like the idea of a free democratic nation on its border.
Excellent link. Supports most of what we’ve been talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68bD8MHnJFk
Instability in Russia = stability in Europe
You might add that Putin, engaging in short term thinking, encouraged Russophones in the Donbas to rebel, and create their own tinpot statelets. Only later did it occur to Putin that by subtracting the Russophone voters of Crimea and Donbas from Ukraine, by force of arms, he had insured that, for decades, at least, Ukraine would never have a pro-Russian government, unless it was imposed, and maintained, by Russian bayonets.