To: RetiredNow who wrote (1055259 ) 2/18/2018 4:44:37 PM From: Brumar89 Read Replies (1) | Respond to 1) Fighting near NATO's eastern border (Four NATO members border Ukraine) is a threat to one of our alliances. 2) We didn't foment a coup in Ukraine. There wasn't even a coup. Just cause Putin says it doesn't make it true.... During the Euromaidan, there were protests and clashes with police throughout Ukraine, especially at the Maidan in Kiev, which was occupied and barricaded by protesters. Dozens of communist monuments were also toppled or destroyed. Protests and clashes increased in January, after the Ukrainian parliament passed a group of anti-protest laws. Protesters occupied government buildings in many regions of Ukraine, and several activists were killed in clashes on Hrushevskoho Street in Kiev. The protests climaxed in mid-February. Riot police advanced towards Maidan and clashed with protesters but did not fully occupy it. Police and activists fired live and rubber ammunition at multiple locations in Kiev. There was fierce fighting in Kiev on February 18–20, in which almost 100 activists and 17 police officers were killed (see List of people killed during Euromaidan). As a result of these events, Yanukovych was forced to make concessions to the opposition to end the bloodshed in Kiev and end the crisis. The Agreement on settlement of political crisis in Ukraine was signed by Vitaly Klitschko, Arseny Yatsenyuk, Oleh Tyahnybok. The signing was witnessed by the Foreign Ministers of Germany and Poland, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Radoslaw Sikorski, respectively, and the Director of the Continental Europe Department of the French Foreign Ministry, Eric Fournier.[81] Vladimir Lukin, representing Russia, refused to sign the agreement. In late February 2014, Yanukovych and many other high government officials fled the country . Protesters gained control of the presidential administration and Yanukovych's private estate. Afterwards, the parliament removed Yanukovych from office, replaced the government with a pro-European one, and ordered that former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko be released from prison .[82] Events in Kiev were soon followed by the Crimean crisis and pro-Russian unrest in Eastern Ukraine. Despite the impeachment of Yanukovych ,[83] the installation of a new government, and the adoption of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement's political provisions, the protests have sustained pressure on the government to reject Russian influence in Ukraine. .......... A turning point came in late February, when enough members of the president's party fled or defected for the party to lose its majority in parliament, leaving the opposition large enough to form the necessary quorum . This allowed parliament to pass a series of laws that removed police from Kiev, cancelled anti-protest operations, restored the 2004 constitution, freed political detainees, and removed President Yanukovych from office . Yanukovych then fled to Ukraine's second largest city of Kharkiv , refusing to recognise the parliament's decisions. The parliament assigned early elections for May 2014. .... wikipedia: Euromaiden
