Rethinking Ukraine: An Open Letter to Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies

In a recent article for The Progressive, you repeat the claim that the US backed the violent overthrow of Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, thus justifying Russia’s subsequent annexation of Crimea and the Donbas, and setting the stage for its 2022 invasion.

To back up your claim, you cite the Cato Institute, a right-wing libertarian think tank co-founded by Charles Koch, which accused the Obama administration of scheming to remove Yanukovych from power. But on closer inspection, a different and more nuanced picture emerges.

At issue is the leaked transcript of a phone conversation between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. 

In February 2014, when the call took place, the Maidan protests had been going on for three months. Tens of thousands filled Kyiv’s main square day after day, demanding an end to government corruption and police repression. Anxious for a peaceful settlement, the US evidently thought there was still a chance Yanukovych could remain in power, despite the fact that protesters were calling for his ouster. 

According to the transcript, they seem to have been trying to broker a power-sharing arrangement that would bring opposition leaders into the government and put an end to the uprising. Frustrated with the EU, they wanted the UN to play an active role in bolstering some sort of deal. 

In the end, though, it was Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski, representing the EU, who brokered an agreement. Yanukovych would remain president, form a national unity government, and call for early elections. The constitution of 2004 would be restored, and controversial amendments repealed. The killing of protesters would stop, and a general amnesty put into effect — by then, more than a hundred had been killed, most by police snipers. 

You can see the full text of the agreement here, which was signed by President Yanukovych on February 21. 

The plan fell through, however, when Yanukovych left Kyiv for Crimea, and then abruptly fled across the border to Russia. The next day, February 22, Ukraine’s Parliament voted to remove him from office, saying that he had effectively resigned. Two days later they issued a warrant for his arrest, for the "mass killing of civilians". 

Hardly a US-backed coup, Yanukovych's last-minute departure seems not to have been part of the plan. In fact, it was the Russian Federation, which withdrew its support for Yanukovych, that likely caused his downfall. By then, Russian troops were already on the move.

On February 24, 2014, Russian special forces in unmarked uniforms illegally invaded and later annexed Crimea. In April, working with local paramilitary groups, they took over regional governments in the Donbas. Planned coups in six other districts failed. Even though it had begun a military buildup the previous year, Russia justified its intervention with the deliberate lie that a “fascist coup” had taken place in Kyiv.

On February 24, 2022, exactly eight years later, Russian troops invaded Ukraine again, launching a brutal war of aggression, ethnic cleansing, rape, torture, abductions, kidnappings, forced deportation, looting, attacks on civilian infrastructure, and disinformation that continues to this day. Their "special military operation" to "de-Nazify" Ukraine has morphed into an all-out "holy war" to "de-Satanize" the country and erase it from the map.

Your unwillingness to condemn the perpetrator of this genocidal war, and to hold Russian war criminals responsible, is unconscionable. 

Ukraine has earned the right to self-determination. In a 1991 referendum, 92 percent of Ukrainians voted for independence. In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, co-signed by Russia, the US, and the UK, Ukraine voluntarily gave up its nuclear weapons in return for security guarantees.

Ukraine deserves our respect and solidarity. In the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."