One of the most concise summaries of events in Ukraine in 2014 and the disinformation that followed

[Tommy Carcetti]

https://www.thebulwark.com/what-really-happened-in-ukraine-in-2014-and-since-then/

Excerpt:

What Really Happened in Ukraine in 2014—and Since Then
A close look at the lies and distortions from Russia apologists and propagandists about the roots of the Ukraine war.
by CATHY YOUNG APRIL 13, 2022 5:30 AM


Pundits skeptical of or even hostile to Ukraine’s cause in its defensive war against Russia have different reasons, or rationalizations, for their views and hail from different points on the political spectrum. But there is one belief that unites nearly all of them: the conviction that Ukraine is not a democracy fighting for its survival but an American “Deep State” project, with a regime installed by a 2014 coup that was led by Ukrainian far-right extremists and backed or even engineered by the U.S. State Department. The corollary of this view is the belief that the pro-Kremlin enclaves in Eastern Ukraine, the “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk—whose defense was the stated purpose of the Russian invasion—are genuine expressions of the will of the local populace which rejects the pro-Western, anti-Moscow regime in Kyiv.

This narrative is embraced by the progressive left (CodePink’s Medea Benjamin, the Nation’s Aaron Maté, etc.) and the populist right (the Claremont Institute’s David Reaboi, Newsweek opinion editor Josh Hammer, and many others) and gives both permission to disregard their ostensible values—anti-imperialism and liberation struggles for the left, commitment to national sovereignty for the right.

It has been echoed even by some people broadly sympathetic to the pro-freedom aspirations of the Maidan (Independence Square) protesters who rose against Kremlin-friendly president Viktor Yanukovych in late 2013 and early 2014. Take, for instance, a piece by Branko Marcetic published in the left-wing magazine Jacobin this past February on the eve of the war and purporting to set the record straight on the “widely misunderstood” events of 2014 known in Ukraine as the Revolution of Dignity. Marcetic acknowledges that the Yanukovych regime was not only corrupt but brutally authoritarian; while he believes that the United States exploited the Maidan uprising, he concedes that it’s an “overstatement” to say that the protests were “orchestrated” by Washington. Yet Marcetic concludes that the revolution was hijacked “to empower literal neo-Nazis” and enact the agenda of opportunistic Western backers, ultimately setting the stage for war with Russia.

Such accounts feature enough factual nuggets to lend them verisimilitude—notably, an infamous leaked 2014 phone call in which Victoria Nuland, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, were discussing the role of various opposition figures in Ukraine’s post-Maidan government. (That Nuland is currently the under secretary of state for political affairs—and the official who recently confirmed the existence of U.S.-assisted “biological research facilities” in Ukraine—just makes the conspiracy theories juicier.) But a closer look shows that, more often than not, this purportedly damning evidence is cherry-picked and snatched of context, while other key facts are omitted or glossed over.

It's a long piece and in The Bulwark (which is slightly right of center but still overall pretty fair.)

But it covers everything from the protests at Maidan to Yanukovych's departure to Victoria Nuland and her cookies to Russia's proxy war in Eastern Ukraine. Also addresses claims that "neo-nazis" were involved in both the protests and the subsequent Ukrainian government and military.

Disinformation and false narratives about what happened in Ukraine in 2014 stems both from the far right as well as self-described "leftists" (i.e. the Glenn Greenwald crowd). And unfortunately it was extremely prevalent here at DU in 2014 and 2015, for anyone who might remember.

Thankfully, there's been very little of that here at DU in 2022; most of the people pushing the false narratives and disinformation (both willfully and unknowingly) left here in 2016. But it was something awful when it was taking place.

A sampling:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10024558916

[niyad]

1. KNR and bookmarking. A most important read.

[FreepFryer]

2. Thom Hartmann on RT was among the very first to push the denazification big lie back then.

Thom Hartmann Sticking with RT despite Resignations over Putin's Actions in Ukraine
March 10, 2014

In the wake of last week's on-air resignation of Russia Today (RT) anchor Liz Wahl over the Russian government's actions in the Ukraine, Thom Hartmann announced on his RT program today that he is editorially independent and "we value the relationships" with organizations like RT.

Hartmann did not address the crisis in Ukraine on his television program, but during his radio program earlier in the day he discussed the situation with Stephen Cohen, who has written recent pieces in The Nation magazine entitled "Demonizing Putin" and "Distorting Russia." During the interview, Hartmann and Cohen accepted as fact the conspiracy theory thatsnipers on the side of the new anti-Russia government fired on their own side in the main square in Kiev so that the now-ousted president Viktor Yanukovych would be blamed.

Hartmann and Cohen also referred the new anti-Russian Ukrainian government as "extremists." "The extremists came to power sharing, they are sharing power now," Cohen said, to Hartmann's agreement. "Obama unwisely keeps declaring the government in Kiev as legitimate," Cohen added.

Hartmann suggested that the new anti-Russia government in Ukraine were neo-Nazis. "If you listen to the words of these guys in the cabinet, if you listen to the words of the party, they are openly antisemitic, they are openly nationalistic, they are open aggressive," Hartmann said. "Some may think calling them Nazis is a slur, some of them wouldn't refer to themselves that way, but some of them embrace swastikas."

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2014/3/10/1283668/-Thom-Hartmann-Sticking-with-RT-despite-Resignations-over-Putin-s-Actions-in-Ukraine

[nycbos]

3. And on DU the propaganda was rampet.

[Mister Ed]

4. The propaganda posters on DU in 2014 were effective.

I, for one, became so confused about events in Ukraine that I no longer knew what to think. I'm sure that was the objective.

[Tommy Carcetti]

5. Vladislav Surkov, Putin's right hand man for years, specialized in this very tactic.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/02/guardian-view-russian-propaganda-truth-out-there

One of the foremost ringmasters of this postmodern authoritarianism is Putin adviser and trendy former TV executive Vladislav Surkov; he is as comfortable talking about performance art and rap music as he is about contemporary politics. For him, all news is comment, all truth little more than opinion. There is the BBC view. The Fox News view. The Russia Today view. All are expressions of special interests, not so much attempts at the truth as individual perspectives and localised narratives.

Mr Surkov grasps that all this chimes closely with the idea, familiar in the west, that any and every perspective can be legitimised as a matter of individual opinion. On the basis of this lazy philosophy, the idea that one view is right and another wrong can be made to sound like some unwarranted imposition of authority. You can already hear the objection to the assertion of truth: “Who is to say who is right?”

What Russian state spin demonstrates is that, by dispensing with what we used to be comfortable calling the truth, we are left with nothing but sheer power. In other words, relativism leads inevitably into nihilism. “What is truth?” said Pontius Pilate, trying to befuddle the issues of innocence and guilt with high-sounding Putin-like misdirection. No news organisation should be sympathetic to this strategy. For while comment is free, the facts are sacred.

Amid the various narratives of “the truth” now being rehearsed by the Russian state, it is necessary to insist upon a reality; on Friday morning Mr Nemtsov was alive, but by the day’s end he was dead. Amid the mischievous misdirection of the Kremlin’s counter-measures, this is, quite simply, the truth.