Ukraine Timeline

From Detroit Dan here.

Ukraine Timeline

This timeline is not comprehensive, and I may add more significant events as they come to my attention. The intent is to show how and why we got to current state of affairs (war / proxy war).

My opinion is that the anti-communist impulses from the Cold War have continued and are still active. The right sector (Ukrainian ethno nationalists and affiliated mercenaries from around the world) have been carrying out war crimes since 2014, picking up where they left off in WWII and the Cold War (with CIA support in the latter).

I feel that Russia was right to intervene in a 8 year civil war that was based on violent intolerance by these groups (10,000+ killed) and supported militarily by a virulently anti-Russian U.S. led western alliance.

Sources for this timeline:

What the U.S. Government and The New York Times Have Quietly Agreed Not to Tell You About Ukraine


The Hidden Truth about the War in Ukraine

Additional related resources:

How Pre-WW II Ukrainian Fascists Pioneered Brutal Terror Techniques; Later Improved By CIA, Now Ironically Taught to Descendants


How Monsters Who Beat Jews To Death in 1944 Became America’s Favorite “Freedom Fighters” in 1945—with a Little Help from their Friends at CIA


Who Putin Is Not, Falsely demonizing Russia’s leader has made the new Cold War even more dangerous. By Stephen F. Cohen


Our Interview with Jacques Baud


US, EU sacrificing Ukraine to ‘weaken Russia’: fmr. NATO adviser


Urging regime change in Russia, Biden exposes US aims in Ukraine


The Military Situation in the Ukraine—An Update
See the section "Three Points Deserve to be Highlighted by Way of Conclusion"


Why I'm a Putin Apologist

Having finished compiling this timeline, it seems that the 2004 Orange Revolution was the fulcrum from the times of friendship to the times of distrust. The neocons, fresh from their debacle in Iraq, were successful in aligning US foreign policy with the intelligence community and world anti-communist league types.

1990 - 2022 Timeline

1990 NATO Expansion Promise

On 9 February 1990, in order to appease Gorbachev’s concerns, Baker declared:

Not only for the Soviet Union but also for other European countries, it is important to have guarantees that if the United States maintains its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not one inch of NATO’s current military jurisdiction will spread eastward.

Thus, on 17 May 1990, in a speech in Brussels, Manfred Wörner, NATO Secretary-General, declared:

The fact that we are prepared not to deploy a NATO army beyond German territory gives the Soviet Union a solid guarantee of security.

In February 2022, in the German magazine Der Spiegel, Joshua Shifrinson, an American political analyst, revealed a declassified SECRET document of March 6, 1991, written after a meeting of the political directors of the foreign ministries of the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany. It reports the words of the German representative, Jürgen Chrobog:

We made it clear in the 2+4 negotiations that we would not extend NATO beyond the Elbe. Therefore, we cannot offer NATO membership to Poland and the others.

1991, 1992 - Crimean Referendum & Constitution

On 20 January 1991, before the independence of Ukraine, the Crimeans were invited to choose by referendum between two options: to remain with Kiev or to return to the pre-1954 situation and be administered by Moscow. This was the first referendum on autonomy in the USSR, and 93.6% of Crimeans agreed to be attached to Moscow. The Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Crimea (ASSR Crimea), abolished in 1945, was thus re-established on 12 February 1991 by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR.

Ukraine became independent six months after Crimea, and after the latter had proclaimed its sovereignty on September 4. On February 26, 1992, the Crimean parliament proclaimed the “Republic of Crimea” with the agreement of the Ukrainian government, which granted it the status of a self-governing republic. On 5 May 1992, Crimea declared its independence and adopted a Constitution.

1994 - Budapest Memorandum

In 1994, by signing the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine surrendered the nuclear weapons of the former USSR that remained on its territory, in exchange for “its security, independence and territorial integrity.” At this stage, Crimea considered that it was—de jure—no longer part of Ukraine and therefore not concerned by this treaty.

1995 - Kiev Abolishes Crimean Constitution

On its side, the government in Kiev felt strengthened by the Budapest memorandum. This is why, on 17 March 1995, it forcibly abolished the Crimean Constitution. It sent its special forces to overthrow Yuri Mechkov, President of Crimea, and de facto annexed the Republic of Crimea, thus triggering popular demonstrations for the attachment of Crimea to Russia.

1995 - New Crimean Constitution

Crimea was then governed in an authoritarian manner by presidential decrees from Kiev. This situation led the Crimean Parliament to formulate a new constitution in October 1995, which re-established the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. This new constitution was ratified by the Crimean Parliament on 21 October 1998 and confirmed by the Ukrainian Parliament on 23 December 1998.

1997 - Treaty of Friendship

These Crimean events and the concerns of the Russian-speaking minority led to a Treaty of Friendship between Ukraine and Russia on 31 May 1997. In the treaty, Ukraine included the principle of the inviolability of borders, in exchange—and this is very important—for a guarantee of “the protection of the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious originality of the national minorities on their territory.”

1994, 1998, 1999 - Ukrainian Elections

The first efforts from Leonid Kuchma and Leonid Kravchuk mostly involved the repression of the Communist Party of Ukraine, which was the largest and most successful party in Ukraine during the 1990s. The Communists won elections in 1994 (the first they contested after their ban was overturned) and again in a very decisive manner in 1998. Despite this, Kuchma and Kravchuk succeeded at keeping the Communists out of power, drawing on help from both Yeltsin’s Russia and NATO. In the 1999 presidential election, facing certain defeat, Kuchma had to resort to outright ballot stuffing to retain power, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observation mission.

1999 - Poland Hungary, Czech Republic Join NATO

2001 - US Withdraws from ABM Treaty

In 2001, as George W. Bush decided to unilaterally withdraw from the ABM Treaty and to deploy anti-ballistic missiles (ABM) in Eastern Europe.

2003 - US Invasion of Iraq

Russia and most of the world opposed this as unjustified.

2004 - Seven Central and Eastern European countries join NATO

Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia

2004-2005 - Orange Revolution & Rehabilitation of the Nazi Collaborators

In 2004, unpopular president Leonid Kuchma was term-limited and did not try to force the issue, fearing a critical mass of dissent. Instead, he put forward his Prime Minister and political protégé Viktor Yanukovych to run in his stead. Yanukovych’s primary challenger was Viktor Yushchenko, a bank administrator turned prime minister who had become the leader and public face of the anti-Kuchma movement.

Initially, Yanukovych was victorious in the 2004 election, winning by a narrow margin in the runoff. The victory was widely seen as fraudulent with exit polls suggesting a Yushchenko victory and in response the opposition mobilized massive protests throughout Ukraine in what was dubbed the “Orange Revolution,” with Orange being the color of Yushchenko’s political party.

As many as 500,000 protesters took to the streets against the government with marches, strikes and rallies gripping the nation for about three months. Major oligarchs such as Petro Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko supported the movement, leaving the government with few allies. Kuchma, once more fearing a revolution, withdrew his support of Yanukovych and the Ukrainian constitutional court annulled the election, ordering a re-vote on the 26th of December.

NATO was not idle in this revolution. Neither the U.S. nor the EU accepted the results of the first election, and the U.S. publicly supported Yushchenko. Publicly, the ABN-affiliated John McCain visited Kyiv alongside Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Hillary Clinton went so far as to nominate both Yushchenko and future Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili for the Nobel Peace Prize. Privately, the U.S. provided both enormous financial and technical support to their chosen candidates.

After his victory (in 2004), Yushchenko embarked on a full rehabilitation of the Nazi collaborator OUN, which had been active participants in the Holocaust. Streets and cities were renamed, monuments to the fascist killers were erected throughout the country, and Yushchenko awarded hero of Ukraine to the infamous OUN commanders Stepan Bandera and even Roman Shukhevych, who once murdered 8,000 Poles in a single day, to widespread condemnation both at home and abroad.

Starting in 2004 with the Orange Revolution, Ukrainian society has been embroiled in a nearly two-decade long era of chaos and bloodshed, the grisly results of which we see in the current war. Slava Stetsko’s CIA-backed Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (KUN) was there for all of it, starting from the street protests in 2004 to the Maidan coup in 2014 and the bloody repression of the Donbas which followed

2007 - Putin's Munich Speech

Putin criticized what he called the United States' monopolistic dominance in global relations, and its "almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations".

Putin quoted a 1990 speech by Manfred Wörner to support his position that NATO promised not to expand into new countries in Eastern Europe:

"no one feels safe! Because no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them. Of course such a policy stimulates an arms race."

Putin publicly opposed plans for the U.S. missile shield in Europe, and presented President George W. Bush with a counter proposal on 7 June 2007 which was declined.[7] Russia suspended its participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe on 11 December 2007 because: "Seven years have passed and only four states have ratified this document, including the Russian Federation.{

2008 - Offer of Future NATO Expansion to Ukraine and Georgia

2008 - Georgia - Russia Battles

2009 - Two countries on the Adriatic Sea—Albania and Croatia—joined NATO

2010 - Arab Spring Uprisings Begin

2010 - Presidential Election

By the time of the 2010 presidential election Yushchenko was so unpopular that he fell to fifth place with just 5% of the vote. Viktor Yanukovych and his “Party of Regions,” on the other hand, capitalized on the chaos and incompetence of the Yushchenko administration and emerged victorious from the election which international observers certified as free and fair.

2012 - Language Law

On 7 February 2012 members of the Verkhovna Rada Serhii Kivalov and Vadym Kolesnychenko (both from the Party of Regions) entered a bill (commonly called "Kolesnychenko-Kivalov language bill"), that would have given the status of regional language to Russian and other minority languages. It allowed the use of minority languages in courts, schools and other government institutions in areas of Ukraine where the national minorities exceed 10% of the population.

2013 - 50/50 Split

A survey conducted in November 2013 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) shows that it was split almost exactly “50/50” between those who favored an agreement with the European Union and those favoring a customs union with Russia. In the south and east of Ukraine, industry was strongly linked to Russia, and workers feared that an agreement excluding Russia would kill their jobs.

2013-2014 - International Economic & Political Negotiations (ref Aaron Mate)

The immediate background came in the fall of 2013, when the US and its allies pressured Yanukovych to sign a European Union association agreement that would have curtailed its ties to Russia. To sign the EU deal, Ukraine would have to accept the harsh austerity demands of the IMF, which had publicly criticized Ukraine's "large pension and wage increases," and "generous energy subsidies." The agreement also contained a provision calling on Ukraine to adhere to the EU's "military and security" policies, "which meant in effect, without mentioning the alliance, NATO," as the late scholar Stephen F. Cohen argued.

In 2014, the IMF asked Ukraine to dramatically raise taxes on essential goods and services while freezing wages and cutting social safety nets. The government refused these demands estimating that they could lead to the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. It was this refusal that officially sparked the Euromaidan protests.

February 2014 - Protests Turn Violent, Coup

On February 20, 2014, snipers opened fire on the crowd from the Kyiv Philharmonic Building, which had been occupied by Maidan forces the night prior. 67 died and hundreds were wounded, with casualties on both sides. Maidan forces blamed Yanukovych, while Western intelligence suspected it to be a Maidan provocation.

On 23 February 2014, not only did the new authorities in Kiev emerge from a coup d’état that had definitely no constitutional basis and were not elected; but, by abrogating the 2012 Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law on official languages, they no longer respected this guarantee of the 1997 friendship treaty. The Crimeans therefore took to the streets to demand the “return” to Russia that they had obtained 30 years earlier.

March 6 2014 - Another Crimean Referendum

On March 6 2014, the Crimean Parliament decided to hold a popular referendum to choose between remaining in Ukraine or requesting the attachment to Moscow. It was after this vote that the Crimean authorities asked Moscow for an attachment to Russia.

2014 - Civil War Begins, Centered in Donbas

The charred and brutalized remains of 48 civilians were found inside the Odessa House of Trade Unions. None of the fascists responsible for these atrocities ever faced charges but were, instead, lauded by the state and media. Similar attacks occurred throughout Ukraine.

In May 2014, the violent repression of protests prompted the population of some areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine to hold referendums for Self-Determination in the Donetsk People’s Republic (approved by 89%) and in the Lugansk People’s Republic (approved by 96%). Although Western media keeps calling them referendums of “independence,” they are referendums of “self-determination” or “autonomy” (самостоятельность). Until February 2022, our media consistently talked about “separatists” and “separatist republics.” In reality, as stated in the Minsk Agreement, these self-proclaimed republics didn’t seek “independence,” but an “autonomy” within Ukraine, with the ability to use their own language and their own customs.

New regime appoints crime boss turned interior minister Arsen Avakov to restore order. Avakov began the transfer of police bases and equipment to Right Sector forces, considerably bolstering their strength. Right Sector and other far-right groups began taking control of settlements, through threats when possible, and violence when necessary. In Irpin, masked Right Sector activists threatened to murder the democratically elected representatives if they did not join the Kyiv regime.

Rather than shoot their friends, relatives, and neighbors in eastern Ukraine, they went home. Roughly 70% of the Ukrainian army deserted or outright defected.

On April 15, 2015, Avakov founded the Special Tasks Patrol police, deputizing groups such as Biletsky’s Patriot of Ukraine and the Stetsko family’s CIA killers in the KUN. The new organization expanded rapidly, eventually encompassing 56 units drawn from the now vast ranks of neo-Nazi militias inside Ukraine… Very few of those responsible have ever faced consequences. Of those who have, most have now been released. An example would be the infamous “Tornado” unit of the STP. Accused, tried and convicted of crimes…, evidence was so strong that even the Kyiv regime could not ignore it, and unit members languished in prison until released by the Zelensky regime.

In the Donbas, the heaviest price was paid by residents living under Ukrainian military shelling, who, according to UN figures, have accounted for 81% of the civilian casualties since 2018 (more than 10,000). .

2014 - Increased U.S. - Ukraine Military Cooperation Begins

Starting in 2014, the Ukrainian state began several secret military programs. The first and most well known is its collaboration with the Pentagon in 30 different laboratories… All the results of this research have been sent to the military biological laboratories at Fort Detrick, which once played a leading role in the US biological weapons program.

Rafael Grossi of Argentina, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, incidentally said at the Davos Forum on May 25 that Ukraine had stored 30 tons of plutonium and 40 tons of enriched uranium at its Zaporizhia plant… Between 2014 and 2022, Ukraine asked four times for a renegotiation of the Budapest Memorandum… by which Ukraine pledged to transfer all their nuclear weapons to Russia and to abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

To compensate for the lack of soldiers, the Ukrainian government resorted to paramilitary militias. They are essentially composed of foreign mercenaries, often extreme right-wing militants. In 2020, they constituted about 40 percent of the Ukrainian forces and numbered about 102,000 men, according to Reuters. They were armed, financed and trained by the United States, Great Britain, Canada and France. There were more than 19 nationalities—including Swiss.

When Donald Trump took office, Washington neoconservatives capitalized on Russiagate mania to achieve their desired "year of offense." Heavy bipartisan lobbying, coupled with his own incentive to disprove the frenzied allegations that he was beholden to the Kremlin, swayed Trump to reverse the Obama policy and approve the sale of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine.

2015 - Minsk Accords

Baud: The rebels were armed thanks to the defection of Russian-speaking Ukrainian units that went over to the rebel side. As Ukrainian failures continued, tank, artillery and anti-aircraft battalions swelled the ranks of the autonomists. This is what pushed the Ukrainians to commit to the Minsk Agreements.

But just after signing the Minsk 1 Agreements, the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko launched a massive anti-terrorist operation (ATO/Антитерористична операція) against the Donbass. Bis repetita placent: poorly advised by NATO officers, the Ukrainians suffered a crushing defeat in Debaltsevo, which forced them to engage in the Minsk 2 Agreements.

It is essential to recall here that Minsk 1 (September 2014) and Minsk 2 (February 2015) Agreements did not provide for the separation or independence of the Republics, but their autonomy within the framework of Ukraine. Those who have read the Agreements (there are very, very, very few of those who actually have) will note that it is written in all letters that the status of the Republics was to be negotiated between Kiev and the representatives of the Republics, for an internal solution to the Ukraine.

Obama's misgivings about arming Ukraine helped yield the 2015 Minsk II accords, in which an outmatched Kiev accepted limited autonomy for the Donbas in exchange for the Russian-backed rebels' demilitarization. While this bargain would end the war, it would also grant the Donbas region an effective veto over Ukraine's NATO ambitions. The Ukrainian far-right, empowered by the 2014 Maidan coup and in no mood for an accommodation with Russian-speakers in the east, successfully undermined the Minsk accords with violent protests.

2016 - Russiagate Begins

Democratic party, US intelligence agencies, and mainstream media begin an extended disinformation campaign claiming Russia determined the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, and smearing anyone supporting Russia versus Ukraine. Official report by US intelligence agencies later found to be based upon disinformation. Ukrainian government officials actually have greater involvement in disinformation than do Russida, as they can get away with it while Russia / Putin is pariah / scapegoat across the board in US politics.

2016 - McCain, Graham Visit Ukraine

A video, filmed during John McCain’s visit to Ukraine in 2016, shows the senator accompanied by his colleague and friend, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. In this video, Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain assure that the United States will give all the weapons necessary for them to succeed in defeating Russia.

Shortly afterwards, President Poroshenko, who had attended the meeting in battle dress, changed the badge of his secret service, the SBU. It is now an owl holding a sword directed against Russia.

2017 - Montenegro Joins NATO

2018 - United States withdrew from Open Skies Treaty

2019 - United States withdrew from Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty

In 2019, Donald Trump justified his withdrawal from the INF Treaty by alleged violations by the Russian side. But, as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) notes, the Americans never provided proof of these violations. In fact, the US was simply trying to get out of the agreement in order to install their AEGIS missile systems in Poland and Romania.

2019 - RAND Corporation Plan

On September 5, 2019, the Rand Corporation organized a meeting in the US House of Representatives to explain its plan: to weaken Russia by forcing it to deploy in Kazakhstan, then in Ukraine and as far as Transnistria

2019 - Trump Impeachment Related to Weapons for Ukraine

Adam Schiff: "Fight them there so we don't have to fight them here."

2020 - North Macedonia Joins NATO

2021-2022 - Tensions Increase

Zelensky deliberately targeted Ukraine's Russian-backed opposition in early 2021 to please the new regime in Washington. According to Danyliuk, when Zelensky shut down three pro-Russian opposition TV networks, the move was "conceived as a welcome gift to the Biden Administration, and "calculated to fit in with the U.S. agenda." The Biden administration signaled its appreciation by cheering the crackdown. Its silence on Zelensky's recent banning of 10 opposition parties suggests a similar reception.

March 24, 2021. On that day, Volodymyr Zelensky issued a decree for the recapture of the Crimea, and began to deploy his forces to the south of the country. At the same time, several NATO exercises were conducted between the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, accompanied by a significant increase in reconnaissance flights along the Russian border.

In August 2021, Washington and Kiev signed the U.S.-Ukraine Strategic Defense Framework, which calls for collaboration "to advance the military capabilities and readiness of Ukraine to preserve the country’s territorial integrity, progress toward NATO interoperability, and promote regional security." The plan also calls for a "closer partnership of defense intelligence communities in support of military planning and defensive operations."

Ukraine was conducting air operations in Donbass using drones, including at least one strike against a fuel depot in Donetsk in October 2021

This was followed in November by the U.S.-Ukrainian Charter on Strategic Partnership, which declared U.S. support for "Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO." The agreement also touted "Ukraine’s efforts to maximize its status as a NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner," a special status for a small number of NATO allies, and a green light for increased NATO weapons shipments and integration.

Zelensky's DC-inspired hostility to the Russian-tied opposition also carried over to the peace accords that he was elected on implementing. At the final round of Minsk talks, which concluded just two weeks before Russia's invasion, a "key obstacle," the Washington Post reported, "was Kyiv’s opposition to negotiating with the pro-Russian separatists."

On February 11, in Berlin, after nine hours of work, the meeting of political advisors of the leaders of the “Normandy format” ended, without any concrete result: the Ukrainians still refused to apply the Minsk Agreements, apparently under pressure from the United States… Ukrainian preparations in the contact zone continued. The Russian Parliament became alarmed; and on February 15 asked Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of the Republics, which he refused to do… On 11th February, President Joe Biden announced that Russia would attack the Ukraine in the next few days. How did he know this? It is a mystery. But since the 16th, the artillery shelling of the population of Donbass increased dramatically, as the daily reports of the OSCE observers show

On 19 February 2022, Anka Feldhusen, the German ambassador in Kiev, threw a spanner in the works by declaring on the television channel Ukraine 24 that the Budapest Memorandum was not legally binding. Incidentally, this is also the American position.