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My understanding of "coup" is that it refers to the military overthrowing the government. In this case the US is giving aid to the Ukrainian military in their
by tempestn 12y ago
My understanding of "coup" is that it refers to the military overthrowing the government. In this case the US is giving aid to the Ukrainian military in their support of the government against separatist rebels, no?
- retrogradeorbit 12y agoDepends who you define as "government". Do you mean the ousted governemnt of Viktor Yanukovych? Or do you mean the government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk? Or the new government of Petro Poroshenko? Revolutions are such messy things.
- toyg 12y ago"Coup" refers to the way the previous, legitimately-elected government was overthrown, before the "rebellion" had even started. It's still unclear who really managed to escalate the situation using snipers (who were never found, afaik), and how bands of "revolutionaries" were armed and organised. We know the US were pushing hard for regime change, thanks to the Nuland intercept, and the personalities reported as US-connected in that intercept were the ones actually taking power. History will usually call "revolutions" the overthrown of unpopular governments doing outrageous things, and "coup" the overthrown of legitimacy-elected governments doing things that only a minority considered objectionable. You can see how this could lead people to judge the Ukrainian series of events in different ways.