The war in Ukraine was caused by the forced expansion of NATO, which the ousted president Viktor Yanukovych had opposed, pro-Kremlin propaganda claims.
NEWS: Former Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, said that he had set out to bring his country closer to the European Union, despite the Europeans’ hostile and arrogant attitude. However he had always been a determined and consistent opponent of Ukraine's NATO accession, he argued.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that one of the causes of the crisis in Ukraine is the West’s repeated attempts to draw the country into NATO. “Indeed, I have consistently tried to bring Ukraine closer to the EU. I have set EU membership as my ultimate goal”, Yanukovych said. Moscow has repeatedly pointed out that this process poses a direct threat to Russia’s security. According to president Putin, after the 2014 coup in Ukraine, the political leadership that opposed the country’s NATO accession was removed.
NARRATIVES: 1. Viktor Yanukovych had always opposed joining NATO in order to keep the peace in Ukraine; 2. The 2014 coup removed peaceful leaders who opposed NATO; 3. NATO membership would have sparked a civil war in Ukraine.
PURPOSE: to legitimize Yanukovych’s pro-Russian stance. To portray the 2014 democratic changes as a coup orchestrated by the West. To justify Russia’s aggression and war crimes.
Fact: Yanukovych was ousted by street protests after refusing to sign the EU Association Agreement. The change of regime was operated following democratic elections
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: Viktor Yanukovych cannot be considered a guarantor of peace, given that his presidential term ended in bloody violence against his own people. In February 2014, law enforcement officers under his command killed over 100 Maidan demonstrators. The protests were not aimed at getting Ukraine into NATO, but at making the president sign the EU Association Agreement, which Yanukovych abruptly suspended under pressure from Moscow in November 2013. Thus, Yanukovych opposed EU rapprochement, despite enormous pressure from Ukrainian society.
Referring to the events of 2014 as a coup is a distortion of reality. The Ukrainian Parliament voted with a constitutional majority (328 out of 450 deputies) to suspend Yanukovych after he had fled the country and refused to fulfill his duties. The procedure was in line with the Constitution of Ukraine, and the new interim leadership organized early presidential elections in May 2014, won by Petro Poroshenko. Parliamentary elections followed in the fall of 2014, monitored and recognized by the international community.
Yanukovych never opposed NATO rapprochement, and the question of NATO accession was not even raised prior to the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of the war in Donbas. At that time, Ukraine had a neutral position and did not seek NATO membership. The Constitution was only amended in 2019 in response to Russian aggression, with Kyiv seeking security guarantees. Therefore, Russia's war against Ukraine led to Kyiv’s NATO rapprochement, not the other way around.
Furthermore, Yanukovych’s policies were pro-Kremlin. During his term in office, the fugitive leader signed the Kharkiv Agreement (2010) extending the stationing of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea for 25 years in exchange for discounts on Russian gas. This decision later facilitated Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula. Yanukovych’s administration systematically destroyed the Ukrainian army and shut down a number of arms factories. These actions paved the way for a future Russian invasion, weakening Ukraine from within.
Moreover, Viktor Yanukovych again lies when he claims that he opposed NATO accession, wanting to protect Ukraine from war. In a 2006 interview to the national newspaper “Deny”, during his term as Prime Minister of Ukraine, the fugitive president said: “Our strategic goal remains integration into the Euro-Atlantic space”. As in the case of EU accession, Kyiv did not take any concrete steps to achieve this goal during the mandate of President Yanukovych. However, there were statements and interviews by the fugitive president in which he promoted the idea of joining NATO.
Ukraine’s NATO rapprochement became a priority only after the Russian aggression, as a measure of self-protection. The current war is not the result of the 2014 “coup d’état” or Ukraine’s pro-NATO aspirations. The cause of the war is the Kremlin’s refusal to accept Ukraine’s right to choose its own geopolitical path and Putin’s imperial ambitions to rebuild Russian influence in ex-Soviet space.
NATO has never threatened Russia and has no intention of attacking it. It is a defensive alliance, designed to protect member states, not initiate conflicts. Every action and official document of NATO emphasizes the principle of collective defense, not aggression. NATO expansion was carried out at the request of sovereign states that wanted additional security. In addition, NATO has always kept dialogue channels with Moscow open and has encouraged cooperation, which demonstrates that it does not pose a real threat to the Russian Federation.
Moreover, Russia would not have attacked Ukraine and would not have annexed Crimea if Ukraine were a NATO member, because such a step would have meant a direct war with the entire Alliance, and the Kremlin knew that it could not face a military confrontation with the most powerful defensive structure in the world, so that the political, economic and military costs would have been incomparably greater than the strategic advantages sought.
BACKGROUND: Former pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia in 2014, has appeared in a rare video message broadcast by the RIA NOVOSTI news agency. 75-year-old Yanukovych said he had “always” opposed Ukraine's NATO membership, which he considers a “catastrophe” that would lead to “civil war”. This is Yanukovych's first recorded intervention since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. The former Ukrainian leader fled the country in 2014 following the bloody Maidan protests and settled in Russia. In April this year, Yanukovych was sentenced to 15 years in prison for illegally crossing the state border and inciting desertion. The sentence was handed down by a court in Kyiv. Yanukovych is also being investigated for treason and corruption.
Check sources:
