[dillondoyle]

No.

1: Democratically elected stretches reality towards the end. The end was not a free and fair democracy nor free and fair elections.

Yanukovych was an autocrat and stooge. copying many of the same tactics as his protector Putin to stay in power beyond public support: suppressing opposition, faking votes with international orgs deemed un true/not valid election, using his private military to intimidate and suppress.

The people of Ukraine WANT to join the EU and be a part of European trade. Perhaps not all but a vast majority.

That's the crux of Maidan.

Yanukovych said he would sign the economic agreement which had broad support across the country. But did a 180 and ran to Putin (literally and figuratively, he physically fled). If any country was holding a gun it was Russia.

2: It was not a coup. This was not a military take over, decapitation by a 3rd party nation, or middle of the night execution.

He was removed through an act of parliament after IMENSE popular opposition via democratic sentiment/uprising among the people.

Even if that act itself wasn't laid out exactly in their constitution, what came next were legitimate free and fair elections which is indisputable.

People and countries should be free to chart their own future.

To remove themselves from the foot of authoritarianism and to rewrite and reimagine their government towards Democracy, European trade, & freedom.

A bully autocrat & former controlling country shouldn't be allowed to shut down the will and future of tens of millions just because they have a larger army and threaten nuclear war.

[yucky]

>Even if that act itself wasn't laid out exactly in their constitution

Way to bury the lede. This is the issue. The coup was illegal, was it not? That doesn't even mean it was necessarily wrong, but can we at least be honest and call it unconstitutional?

[dillondoyle]

That's like saying the American Revolution was a coup because it violated King George's imperial laws.

I guess it's a debate about etymology but coup does not fit reality imho.

That also supposes that the laws were being followed in the first place.

They weren't.

People have a right to chose their government. If the government abuses the people and ignores the rule of law and democracy the people are right to seek better government.

[yucky]

>That's like saying the American Revolution was a coup because it violated King George's imperial laws.

I wouldn't have a huge problem with that characterization, I'm not saying all coups are bad just call it what it is though. The main difference in 1776 though is there was no new leader put in place into an existing government system. The entire government was rebuilt from the ground up. In Ukraine, they just installed their guys.

[mbg721]

While the structure of the human-filled government positions was indeed rebuilt, there was a continued reliance on English common law, to the point that I believe early after the revolution courts still used English cases as precedent. What I was taught in high-school was that the French Revolution was more tumultuous because it relied much more on tearing down the establishment than the American Revolution did.