Subject: Re: USA’s conduct of Ukraine’s 2014 regime change
The US has often been cast as a key player in sparking the Ukraine conflict, from NATO’s provocative expansion to its role in the 2014 Euromaidan upheaval. I agree with you that it is tough finding sources that are not pro-West in our environment, but this is a Political Asylum board and the whole point is to find information that cannot be written elsewhere. Sometimes we are taken for a ride. This happened with the War in Iraq citing weapons of mass destruction, which was a made up narrative, and whilst we say it is obvious now, it had widespread following and anyone arguing with the premise at the time would been, if not aggressively smeared (if the publication was widely read), then at least dismissed (if it was a uni protest, or private argument) as loony. With our history of the public being duped in the past, we need to be more careful of this same blindness occurring with new situations that the US gets itself into, where the narratives we are fed are there to fuel war support, rather than having primary relation to what is true.

I should add that being tough finding sources that are not pro-West made up narratives being hard, of course has no relation to whether the narrative we're fed about Ukraine is true or not. In fact much information published outside the mainstream is of course false. But it is the purpose of this board to focus on the subset of information that isn't publishable normally. The references that I'll place below are pretty benign and heavily peer reviewed, but even publishing that information outside of academia is pretty hard with our automated censorship routines. The narratives that are omnipresent are easy enough to find and don't require work.

Back in 2008 NATO’s Bucharest Summit dropped a bombshell. Ukraine could one day join the alliance. This set off alarm bells in Moscow, with Russia's admin seeing it as a direct threat right on Russia’s doorstep. Imagine an a military alliance hostile to the US, say between China, North Korea and Iran, saying in an important summit that one day they intend to expand to Mexico. Do you think that would be okay with us? They might add "Don't worry, that's only if Mexico want to, we aren't forcing them" while they sponsor anti-US media in Mexico with anti-USA non-profits and eventually calling on the English language to be banned there. But don't worry, they tell Mexico, if US interfere with your country, we'll protect you. Of course we'd not be happy with that situation.

John Mearsheimer, in a 2014 Foreign Affairs piece, nails this point, arguing that NATO’s push eastward, backed by U.S. liberal ambitions, ignored Russia’s security red lines and set the stage for conflict. It’s not about excusing Russia’s actions but recognizing how Western moves stoked the fire.

Fast forward to 2014, when Ukraine’s Euromaidan protests—cheered on by the U.S. and EU—toppled a pro-Russian government. Richard Sakwa, writing in Global Affairs (2022), calls this a tipping point, with Western support for the shift escalating tensions into a full-blown Russia–West standoff. He stops short of calling it a “coup” but hints at heavy external influence. Similarly, Samuel Charap and Jeremy Shapiro in Survival (2015) point out that U.S. backing for Ukraine’s new direction, combined with NATO’s lingering promise, made Russia feel cornered—geopolitically, not just rhetorically.

The kicker? This drama unfolded thousands of miles from America’s borders but right next to Russia’s. That proximity, Mearsheimer and others argue, marks the West as the aggressor in Russia’s eyes. These sources—rigorous, peer-reviewed, and published by reputable outlets like the Council on Foreign Relations and Taylor & Francis—aren’t tainted by obvious political funding, though no analysis is ever fully “pure.” They offer a clear-eyed look at how U.S. and NATO actions, from 2008 to 2014 and beyond, helped light the fuse in Ukraine.

For more, check articles on JSTOR or Taylor & Francis. They’re dense but worth it for anyone wanting the real story behind the headlines.

Mearsheimer, John J. "Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin." Foreign Affairs, vol. 93, no. 5, 2014, pp. 77–89.
Publisher: Council on Foreign Relations.
Access: Available on JSTOR (stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2...) or directly via Foreign Affairs archives.
Relevance: Discusses NATO’s 2008 Bucharest Summit promise to Ukraine and U.S. role in escalating tensions.

Sakwa, Richard. "The Death of Europe? Reflections on the Russia–Ukraine Conflict." Global Affairs, vol. 8, no. 2, 2022, pp. 119–136.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis.
Access: Available on Taylor & Francis Online (DOI: https://www.chathamhouse.org/s...) or potentially via JSTOR for institutional subscribers.
Relevance: Examines U.S. and EU influence in the 2014 Euromaidan events and NATO’s role in provoking Russia.

Charap, Samuel, and Jeremy Shapiro. "Consequences of a New Cold War." Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 57, no. 2, 2015 - http://scharap.fastmail.net.us...
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (for the International Institute for Strategic Studies).