US coup in Ukraine to throttle Russia: Analyst

The US orchestrated a ‘coup d’état’ in Ukraine, which resulted in the ouster of President Victor Yanukovych, in an attempt to harness Russia geopolitically and militarily, a political analyst says.

On February 23, amid rising anti-government violence in Ukraine, the country’s parliament ousted Yanukovych and named Oleksandr Turchynov, the legislature’s then speaker, as interim president.

As the crisis was brewing in Ukraine, US and European officials repeatedly expressed support for the anti-government Ukrainian protesters. The protests took extreme forms as an increasing number of the protesters resorted to violence in confronting Ukrainian security forces.

“The purpose of the Washington-financed and -orchestrated coup in Kiev was to put Ukraine… into the EU and NATO and to evict Russia from its warm water port and ring Russia with US missile bases,” Paul Craig Roberts wrote in a Wednesday article on Press TV’s website.

“Washington’s opinion is that the exceptional and indispensable nation – the US – is above not only all other nations but also above law. What Washington does is legal. What anyone else does in opposition is illegal,” he noted.

The analyst lashed out at the Western countries and their allies – the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and EU member states – for launching a propaganda campaign aimed at whitewashing the US’s crimes in Ukraine and blaming Russia for the existing crisis.

On Wednesday, Ukraine’s acting President Turchynov reportedly asked the parliament to approve a set of military exercises with NATO.

Turchynov’s request, if approved, would bring US and EU troops into close proximity with the Russian military base in Crimea.

Turchynov’s request from the parliament came after Russia’s Military Chief of Staff General Valery Gerasimov announced that his forces were now in complete control of all military bases that Ukraine had in the Black Sea region of Crimea.

Earlier last week, NATO member states and their partner nations, including Ukraine, began two weeks of military exercises at the Novo Selo training facility in eastern Bulgaria.

US Army’s Europe spokesperson, Jesse Granger, claimed that the drills had been planned before the renewed tensions between Russia and the West, and that they aimed at increasing regional flexibility, preserving and enhancing NATO’s interoperability, and facilitating multinational training.

Tensions between the West and Russia heightened after Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and formally applied to become part of the Russian Federation following a referendum on March 16, in which nearly 97 percent of Crimeans voted for union with Russia.