DISINFO: Ukraine ceased to be a democratic state after 2014
SUMMARY
The civilian population of Ukraine and the whole country has become hostages of the Nazis and radicals. This has been going on since the coup in 2014.
The attention has to be drawn to the fact that Ukraine had ceased to be a democratic state after the events of eight years ago. Now it is run by neo-Nazis and oligarchs.
RESPONSE
Recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives undermining Ukrainian statehood and claiming that the Euromaidan protests of 2013-2014 were a Nazi-led coup.
There was no coup d’état in Kyiv in 2014; this is a longstanding pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Ukraine's Euromaidan. The spontaneous onset of the Euromaidan protests was a reaction by numerous segments of the Ukrainian population to former president Viktor Yanukovych’s sudden departure from the promised Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013.
Ukraine is a sovereign and independent state with a democratically-elected president and parliament. The only country that actively tries to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence is the Russian Federation. Russian army attacked Ukraine in 2014, annexed Crimea, and launched unjustified military aggression against Ukraine in February 2022 to topple the democratically elected government in Kyiv. One of the pretexts behind Russia's invasion is the “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine.
The myth of Nazi-ruled Ukraine is a clear disinformation narrative, actively used by the pro-Kremlin outlets. This narrative doesn't correspond to reality. In 2015 Ukraine issued a ban on Nazi and Communist ideologies. On top of that, the far-right groups had a limited presence during the Euromaidan protests and have suffered defeats in every national election after that, with a united front of all radical right-wing parties in the 2019 parliamentary elections winning only 2.15% of the vote falling far short of the 5% minimum guaranteeing entry into parliament.
Learn more about the reasons behind Kremlin's obsession with framing Ukraine as a Nazi state in the EUvsDisinfo analysis titled "Why does Putin portray himself as the tamer of neo-Nazism".
See the EU's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine here along with EU vs Disinfo's Guide to Deciphering Pro-Kremlin disinformation around Putin's War.