How the Western Press Lied About the 2014 Coup in Ukraine

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at Strategic Culture

UPDATE: On November 27th, Swedish radio placed me onto their “spam” list. That was a day after I had submitted this article to them.

– – –

U.S.-and-allied governments, and their billionaires’-controlled press, are unrelenting in their fraudulent portrayal of what was actually the U.S. regime’s conquest and destruction of Ukraine in 2014, by means of a brutal coup, which caused a civil war and the break-up of that country.

The hidden truths about Ukraine, after 2009, will be documented and proven here. These facts have been kept secret from Western publics. (Articles like this are censored-out by the regime’s operatives.)

The first documentation concerns the coup itself, which occurred in February 2014, though the narrator in that video mistakenly says (at 0:27) that the coup started “on February 20th of 2013,” instead of on February 20th of 2014, which is the only slip-up in this entire otherwise-superb presentation. The video is here, and it demonstrates — it even displays — that the U.S. Government, under President Barack Obama, lied through their teeth about that coup, as having been instead a “revolution,” instead of a coup. The key “leaked [phone] call” that’s excerpted in this video can be heard in full here; and its full transcript, including explanations of the persons who are being referred-to in it, is available here. The broader historical significance of that phone-call is reported and explained here. To sum it all up: There is no way that this phone-conversation (which is between two Obama-Administration officials who are discussing whom to appoint to lead Ukraine when the coup will have been completed) can reasonably be interpreted in any other way than that the Obama Administration had carefully planned and executed this coup d’etat, which replaced Ukraine’s democratically elected Government by one that would be controlled by the U.S. regime. This truth is the exact opposite of the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-reporting about that coup, as its having been, instead, ‘the Maidan revolution’. This is how America (and each of its ‘allies’ or vassal nations) deceives its people, just as much (and just as viciously) as any other dictatorship does.

So: how did that ‘revolution’ come about? Here is how it happened — and also the Western lies hiding this reality:

On November 30th of 2013, UK’s Economist magazine bannered “Stealing their dream: Viktor Yanukovych is hijacking Ukrainians’ European future”, and wrote that:

Unwilling to launch economic reforms, cut spending or tame the appetites of his cronies, Mr Yanukovych [Ukraine’s democratically elected and — for the Ukrainian people — remarkably successful, President, as will subsequently be documented here] proceeded to trade the country’s most valuable asset: Ukraine’s geopolitical position. “The talks with the EU were an auction. It was a position of a pimp who is offering Ukraine up for sale,” says Mr Poroshenko [a political enemy of Yanukovych, who became Ukraine’s President after the coup]. Mr Yanukovych let it be known that, if Europe wanted a modern, democratic Ukraine, it needed to pay. His price was $160 billion by 2017.

European politicians were aghast at such blatant blackmail; Mr Putin seemed happy to haggle. It is not clear what he and Mr Yanukovych agreed during their secret meeting in early November — the deal is said to include cheaper gas, credits and lucrative business contracts — but not, it is rumoured in Kiev, a requirement that Ukraine join a proposed new customs union with Russia. Whatever the understanding, it has persuaded Mr Yanukovych to distance himself from the EU. Though nothing is ever final in Ukraine, Mr Yanukovych’s favoured option seems to be to preserve the status quo and refrain from joining either camp while continuing to milk both — hence his new proposal of three-way talks.

A face-saving memorandum may yet be signed with the EU, but the collapse of the association agreement could be a blessing in disguise for the Europeans. Teaming up with Mr Yanukovych, who would never have implemented it, would have only led to disappointment and recriminations, while helping Mr Yanukovych get re-elected. Instead, the collapse brought pressure on Mr Yanukovych from educated middle-class Ukrainians who feel that their future has been hijacked and their dream stolen. Haunted by the memories of 2004, Mr Yanukovych may try to crack down, but time is against him.

On November 24th tens of thousands of Ukrainians went to the streets in support of Ukraine’s European course.

The coup happened in February 2014, and the breakaway of Crimea from Ukraine happened in March 2014, and the civil war that erupted in Ukraine’s far-eastern Donbass region (which had voted 90%+ for Yanukovych) started on 9 May 2014. Then, on 24 November 2014, Germany’s Spiegel magazine headlined “How the EU Lost Russia over Ukraine”, and reported that, back on 19 November 2013, in the Presidential mansion in Kiev, Yanukovych informed the EU’s representatives of his predicament:

“But there are the costs that our experts have calculated,” Yanukovych replied. “What experts?” Füle demanded to know. The Ukrainian president described to his bewildered guest the size of the losses allegedly threatening Ukraine should it sign the agreement with the EU.

Later, the number $160 billion found its way into the press, more than 50 times greater than the $3 billion calculated by the German advisory group. The total came from a study conducted by the Institute for Economics and Forecasting at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and it was a number that Yanukovych would refer to from then on.

“Stefan, if we sign, will you help us?” Yanukovych asked. Füle was speechless. “Sorry, we aren’t the IMF. Where do these numbers come from?” he finally demanded. “I am hearing them for the first time.” They are secret numbers, Yanukovych replied. “Can you imagine what would happen if our people were to learn of these numbers, were they to find out what convergence with the EU would cost our country?”

Obviously, those are two very different accounts of Yanukovych, in Economist and in Spiegel — not the same person. However, both of them agree that his reason for rejecting the EU’s offer is that it amounted to a $160 billion loss to Ukraine, which was money that Ukraine didn’t have. So, regardless of which of those two reports about Yanukovych was true, and which was false, they both reported that Ukraine could not afford the $160 billion price which joining the EU would entail. This fact, alone, means that joining the EU would be a disastrously losing proposition for Ukraine.

Did it turn out to be that — a disastrously losing proposition for Ukraine? It wrecked Ukraine’s economy and destroyed that country, as will now be shown in, first, the subsequent figures on the Ukrainian economy: Ukraine’s GDP, which had risen steadily each and every year throughout Yanukovych’s four years in office, from 136.01 in 2010 up to 183.31 in 2013, plunged 27% in 2014 down to 133.5, and then plunged yet another 32% down to 91.03 in 2015. Then in 2016, it crept up 2.6% to 93.36 in 2017. From there, it rose steadily up to 156.78 in 2019, and then it is currently estimated to be around 132 this year, 2020, which is a 14% decline down from that post-coup peak of 156.78. In other words, even now (nearly 7 years after the coup), Ukraine’s economy hasn’t yet recovered from what U.S. President Barack Obama did to Ukraine by his conquest of (coup to grab) Ukraine. Instead of having been rising every year as it had done under Yanukovych — rising a total of 35% during his Presidency — it has declined 41% from then till now, and has averaged, for every year since 2013, 121, which is 34% (one third) lower GDP than it had been in Yanukovych’s last year (183.31), and 11% lower than it had been even in Yanukovych’s first year as President (136.01).

Regarding the second question (“destroyed the country”), this is what Obama’s Ukrainian coup did to Ukraine’s people: On 23 March 2017, Gallup headlined “South Sudan, Haiti and Ukraine Lead World in Suffering”. What more needs to be said about that?

Whether or not the economic losses did amount to $160 billion (as Ukraine’s own experts had estimated) — or more, or less, than that — those losses did turn out to be enormous; and, Obama, clearly, raped Ukrainians. He destroyed Ukraine (and Trump did nothing to reverse that). Here is how this happened:

On 23 June 2011, two emissaries of the Obama Administration — the head of Google, Eric Schmidt, and his aide, and former subordinate to Hillary Clinton in the U.S. State Department, Jared Cohen — visited Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, pretending to be on his side, while deceiving him to reveal to them ways to reach out online to members of Ukraine’s pro-nazi organizations in order to generate mobs for the demonstrations which were to be organized on Kiev’s Maidan Square to overthrow Ukraine’s President.

On 1 March 2013, the U.S. Embassy in Kiev held its first “Tech Camp” to teach Ukraine’s leading pro-nazis how to reach out to their followers so as to get as many people as possible trained and prepared to follow their instructions on what to do when those demonstrations would be held.

In June 2013, the Obama Administration quietly put out for bid to American contractors their planned project to renovate a school in Sevastopol, in Crimea, in Ukraine, in the location where Russia since 1783 had (and still has) its largest naval base:

Federal Contract Opportunity for Renovation of Sevastopol School #5, Ukraine N33191-13-R-1240. The NAICS Category is 236220 – Commercial and Institutional Building Construction. Posted Aug 20, 2013. Posted by the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (DOD – Navy). The work will be performed at Sevastopol 99000.

This was before the coup, and there were 28 years still remaining on Russia’s lease there. That part of their plan — to terminate that contract and replace Russia’s largest naval base, by yet another U.S. naval base — got foiled by Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, protecting Crimeans when they (as soon as the coup occurred) demanded to have a referendum on becoming restored again to being a part of Russia, as they had been between 1783 and 1954 (when the Soviet dictator arbitrarily transferred Crimea, from the Russian part, to the Ukrainian part, of the Soviet Government).

During the coup, eight busloads of Crimeans, who had come to Kiev to demonstrate against the oust-Yanukovych Maidan demonstrations, hurriedly reboarded their buses in order to flee from nazis who were attacking them, and they finally got cornered en-route home, by those pursuing attackers, in the town of Korsun, and some of their buses were burnt, and many of these Crimeans got clubbed to death by the nazis.

Then, during the interim between the Korsun massacre and the 16 March 2014 Crimean referendum on rejoining the Russian Federation, a Ukrainian federal prosecutor from Crimea, who opposed the coup and managed safely to flee back home by her own private means, became interviewed on local Crimean television and recounted how terrified she had been by the nazis. She was asked whether Crimeans had the right to vote in a referendum to return to being Russians, and she said, “Citizens of Crimea, you have every right in the world” to do that.

The Obama regime (including the International Republican Institute, since foreign conquests are a bipartisan obsession of both Democratic and Republican Party billionaires) had, as part of its planning to take control over Ukraine, hired the Gallup polling firm to survey throughout Ukraine, and especially within Crimea (because of their intention to grab Russia’s naval base), regarding favorability-unfavorability toward NATO, EU, and Russia, both during 16-30 May 2013, prior to the coup (which polling was done ONLY in Crimea, since seizure of Russia’s naval base was the coup’s main goal) and during April 2014 shortly after Crimea broke away from Ukraine in March of 2014. Here are some of the pre-coup findings:

——

http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/2013%20October%207%20Survey%20of%20Crimean%20Public%20Opinion,%20May%2016-30,%202013.pdf

Public Opinion Survey Residents of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea May 16 – 30, 2013

International Republican Institute Baltic Surveys Ltd./The Gallup Organization … with funding from the United States Agency for International Development

p.8: “Regardless of your passport, what do you consider yourself?”

24% “Crimean,” 15% “Ukrainian,” 40% “Russian,” 15% “Tatar” (an anti-Russian group)

p.14: “If Ukraine was able to enter only one international economic union, which entity should it be with?”

53% “Customs Union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan”

17% “The European Union”

p.15: “How would you evaluate your attitude to the following entities?”

Russia: 68% “Warm,” 5% “Cold”

USA 6% “Warm,” 24% “Cold”

p.17: “In your opinion, what should the status of Crimea be?”

“Autonomy in Ukraine (as today [under Crimea’s 1992 Constitution and as subsequently celebrated by rfe/rl on 20 January 2011]) 53%.

“Common oblast of Ukraine [ruled under Ukraine’s 1991 Constitution]” 2%

“Crimea should be separated and given to Russia” 23%.

——

Regarding the second poll, which was taken throughout Ukraine plus Crimea and only a month after the Crimeans had voted to be Russians again, I headlined on 2 July 2014 “Gallup Poll Finds Ukraine Cannot Be One Country” and reported that, “Views of Foreign Parties’ Role in the Crisis – Ukrainian Residents Exclusive of Crimea” were mostly anti-Russia, whereas “Views of Foreign Parties’ Role in the Crisis – Crimea” were overwhelmingly pro-Russia, by 71.3% to 8.8%, which is 89% pro-Russia. Only 2.8% were pro-America, while 76.2% were anti-America, which is 96.5% anti-America.

As I reported, at that time:

An April poll of Ukrainians, published in June by Gallup’s Broadcasting Board of Governors [CORRECTION HERE: That was actually by Gallup, for the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, which group Wikipedia describes as “an independent agency of the United States government which operates various state-run media outlets,” and, so, that propaganda-agency had sponsored this poll, perhaps hoping to find that the Crimean referendum’s reported 96.77% favoring to rejoin Russia would be inconsistent with this Gallup poll — which didn’t turn out to have been the case], found two shockingly opposite countries: one, in the northwest, where the view of the U.S. is favorable among more than 50% of the population; and the other, in the southeast, where the view of the U.S. is unfavorable among more than 70% of the population. Additionally, in the Crimean region — Ukraine’s farthest southeast area, which our President, Barack Obama, says that Russia forcibly seized when the people there voted overwhelmingly on 16 March 2014 to become part of Russia again (as they had been until 1954) — only 2.8% of the public there view the U.S. favorably; more than 97% of Crimeans do not.

And the situation is even more extreme when the issue is the public’s views of Russia — which, overall, are far less favorable than the U.S. is viewed in Ukraine. Less than 2% of residents in Ukraine’s northwest have a favorable view of Russia, but 71.3% of Crimeans do. In Ukraine’s far east, 35.7% do. In Ukraine’s far south except for Crimea, 28.4% do.

Support for joining the European Union is 59.8% in the far north, and 84.2% in the far west. It is 19% in the far east, and 26.8% in the far south. Crimeans were not asked this question, because they had already voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia.

Support for joining NATO is 37.7% in the North, 53.2% in the west, 13.1% in the east, and 10.3% in the south. (Again, Crimea wasn’t polled on this.)

The 500 people that were sampled in Crimea were asked “Please tell me if you agree or disagree: The results of the referendum on Crimea’s status [whether to rejoin Russia] reflect the views of most people here.” 82.8% said “Agree.” 6.7% said “Disagree.”

That 82.8% who said “Agree” constituted 92.5% of the Crimeans who expressed an opinion on this.

On 10 October 2014, I headlined “What Obama’s Ukrainian Stooges Did” and reported on the effort by his stooges there to ethnically cleanse or eliminate the residents in the portion of Ukraine’s far eastern Donbass region so as to eliminate enough of the voters in that area, which had voted 90%+ for Yanukovych, so as to then enable Ukraine to reabsorb that region without thereby causing another President such as Yanukovych to become elected in Ukraine. His effort failed, largely because Russia has assisted the people there to defeat even such attacks as these by Ukraine.

Then, on 15 February 2015, I headlined “Brookings Wants More Villages Firebombed in Ukraine’s ‘Anti Terrorist Operation’”, but Obama’s people finally gave up their ambitious objective. So, it’s a stalemate there, somewhat like the stalemate in Israel’s ambitious objective to ethnically cleanse away most of the Palestinians. But, of course, that is a different situation, with a different history, though with a not too different ethnically eliminative intent.

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.