| >to convince a majority of Ukrainians to revolt Even if you accept the most charitable estimation of the number of people on Maidan in 2014, it's less than 2% of Ukrainian population. Hardly a majority. >against their Russian dominated government It is the government that the Ukrainian people democratically elected not a long time before the coup. >it's a hard sell for me to believe it was not inevitable The Ukraine was evenly split between pro-Russian South-East and pro-Western, well, West. The only chance they had for stability is respecting the democratic principles when people respect the authority of the president who won an election even if they voted for a different candidate. The US supported the coup and broke that system. Despite famous Bush Sr.'s speech in Kiev in 1991[0] that warned of 'suicidal nationalism', the successive American administrations nurtured Ukrainian nationalism, supported and fed it. >its existence as a buffer state controlled by Russia Ukraine being neutral was enough for Russia, but not for the West. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkjxf76xRTw |