DISINFO: DPR and LPR broke away after the coup in Kyiv
SUMMARY
The Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) and neighbouring Lugansk People's Republic (LNR) broke away from Ukraine shortly after the 2014 coup in Kyiv.
RESPONSE
Recurring Pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative claiming there was a coup that displaced the Ukrainian government in 2014.
There was no coup d’état in Kyiv in 2014; this is a longstanding pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Ukraine's Euromaidan. The spontaneous onset of the Euromaidan protests was a reaction by numerous segments of the Ukrainian population to former president Viktor Yanukovych’s sudden departure from the promised Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013.
Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity have been violated by continuos acts of aggression by Russian armed forces since 2014. Since 2014, Russia has waged large-scale armed aggression against Ukraine and is also responsible for the outbreak of the conflict in 2014, after having illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula and engineered the creation of rebel militias in Donetsk, Luhansk and other places, with its army actively participating in military clashes.
This claim is made in the context of an ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine on multiple fronts, which began on 24 February 2022.
See similar disinformation cases claiming that Euromaidan protests were organised by foreign governments: the US and the EU conspired to overthrow the legitimately elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, Obama staged a coup in Ukraine.
See the EU's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine here along with EU vs Disinfo's Guide to Deciphering Pro-Kremlin disinformation around Putin's War.