DISINFO: US deliberately provoked Russia into invading Ukraine to impose sanctions
SUMMARY
Ukraine is a political, diplomatic and financial burden on the United States. Washington is trying to hang this burden on Moscow. The US wanted Russia to occupy Ukraine in 2014, pay its debts, keep this 40-million-strong country, restore its infrastructure and suffer from sanctions after that.
RESPONSE
This is a weird, albeit recurring propagandist narrative from pro-Kremlin media, claiming that the West deliberately incited Ukrainians to topple president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 with a view to engineer clashed and drag Russia into a conflict which would trigger sanctions.
This is conspiracy speculation in a more extreme form. A quick reality check of (firstly) the Russian government's efforts to keep Yanukovych in power back in 2014 before he fled to Russia in February 2014 , and (secondly) the US and EUs strong financial and political support since 2014 - should do away with the speculation.
In fact the Revolution of Dignity was a popular uprising triggered by Yanukovych’s political turn-around away from the long-negotiated Association Agreement (AA) with the EU and his policy to move Ukraine into the Russian orbit including joining the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. Putin allegedly threatened Yanukovych into rejecting the AA.
The West supported the free will of the Ukraine people expressed in the 2014 Euromaidan revolution, which resulted in a change of Ukrainian politics and set Kyiv on track towards Euro-Atlantic integration.
On the issue of who decide to invade: President Putin has openly (and proudly) informed in 2015 that he took the decision to seize Crimea early at the time of the popular protests in Kiev. Crimea was then annexed illegally. Then Russian armed forced invaded two regions in eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk and supported separatists groups. A proxy war has been ongoing since.