Putin puppet
He now resides in Moscow
Yanukovych sought neutrality between Europe and Russia after becoming president of a divided country in 2010 without resorting to murdering police officers or protestors; the same can't be said for his US-supported successors.
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ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ukrainian_presidential_election
The West, Not Russia, Drove the Ukraine Conflict
"In a state and society containing such centrifugal tensions, all it required to produce a convulsion so serious it would lead to civil conflict was a spark.
"In Ukraine this spark came with the decision of the country’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, to rescind the Association Agreement his government was about to sign with the European Union in November 2013, and instead opt for closer economic ties with Russia as a member of the Eurasian Customs Union, responding to the entreaties and political lobbying of Moscow.
"In so doing Yanukovych immediately found himself stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
"His predecessor, Viktor Yuschenko, had already set Ukraine on the
path of closer integration with the West with the objective of eventual EU and NATO membership.
"Yanukovych, with the
support of the Ukrainian Parliament at the time, abandoned this policy, striving instead to steer a neutral path between East and West.
"He elevated Russian to the status of an official
language in those parts of the country — east and south — where it was popularly spoken.
"He did so with a piece of legislation that resulted in violent protests in other parts of the country, thus confirming Ukraine’s intensifying ethnic and cultural divisions."