Quote (bogie160 @ Nov 18 2024 11:48pm)
Ukraine was (and is not) a direct democracy, it's a representative one. In a representative democracy you choose the person who represents you. Yanukovych was that person. The decision as to whether it was better to refuse or accede to Russia's demands was entirely his to make.
States routinely put pressure on one another to advance their own interests. The EU did this just recently with respect to Georgia, and EU leaders have been very vocal about Hungary's Orban, someone who might genuinely threatens their interests and yet simultaneously possesses a clear democratic mandate. When states disagree there are consequences for one side or the other or both. Russia provided an ultimatum, and it was for Yanukovych to decide which course of action was in Ukraine's best interests. Given how things have turned out, perhaps he was right all along.
And in a democratic republic, there are ample levers for a majority voice to change the course if they disagree. Elections were due in a year when the EU / RU debate governed a path decades long. People can vote out a president, like America just did. A peaceful transfer of power. Nobody petitioned their government for redress or tried an electoral campaign.
Since the start of this war, I've consistently said two things. That a moralizing lens is irrelevant to realpolitik. And the west forfeited the hypothetical moral high ground that could have come, anyway. Had the pro-EU faction gained a groundswell of support, how would Russia react? Perhaps
they would have been compelled to intervene to crush a Ukrainian democracy opposed to their interests. Or god forbid, Russia might have simply acceded the loss. We will never know. Instead we helped overthrow a democracy and install a puppet regime, and the real sin is that we weren't willing to invest the strength necessary to defend our ill gotten claims. Steal a country and abandon it.