@
SteelHands Putin for one, and his oligarchs for a few others.
Ask yourself: why did the people of Ukraine have such huge and ongoing protests against Yanukovych, even after dozens of protesters were killed? Do you seriously believe you can pay people to get themselves killed?
Here's why they protested:
In Feb 2013, the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) had voted overwhelmingly (315 out of 349 =90%) to approve finalizing a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union (EU);
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union%E2%80%93Ukraine_Association_Agreement In November 2013, a wave of large-scale protests (known as Euromaidan) emerged in response to President Yanukovych's sudden decision not to sign the EU agreement; instead trying to establish closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. The people smelled a rat with Yanukovych's change of heart.
Those protests grew and grew with deadly battles between protesters and the Birkut "special riot police." From Wikipedia:
On 21 February [2014], an agreement between President Yanukovych and the leaders of the parliamentary opposition was signed that called for the formation of an interim unity government, constitutional reforms and early elections.[31] The following day, police withdrew from central Kyiv, which came under effective control of the protesters. Yanukovych fled the city and then the country.[32] That day, the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from office by 328 to 0 (72.8% of the parliament's 450 members)
BTW, regardless of Putin's propaganda about an "illegal government," the elections after Yanukovych's overthrow, elections of 25 May 2014, resulting in Petro Poroshenko's presidency, were 100% legal. And so were the two rounds of elections in 2019 (31 March & 21 April) that resulted in Zelenski's victory. Sorry, you can't turn the clock back and pretend the last eight years of Ukrainian government didn't happen.
