PETER HITCHENS: Who started this dirty war? Why didn’t we choose democracy against the Kiev mafia?

It has been ten years, not two, since the start of the war in Ukraine. And once you understand that, you can start thinking about it clearly. What is Britain’s interest in this conflict? Why are so many in politics and the media cheering the carnage that has devastated Ukraine, the country they claim to love and admire? What did Ukraine gain from it? What can Ukraine and its people possibly gain from it?

All I ask is that you use your mind instead of your emotions. Let’s start with what happened ten years ago. It should be shocking.

In 2014, Ukraine had a rough but functioning democracy. This worked because the country was almost evenly divided between the east and west. Power shifted from one side to the other and in 2010 Viktor Yanukovych won the presidential election with 12.5 million votes, beating his closest rival, Yulia Tymoshenko, with 11.6 million votes.

Unlike the previous elections in 2004, no one seriously contested the outcome. So in February 2014, Yanukovych was the legal head of state, with two years left in his term.

If, as we all say, we believe in democracy, then this is an almost sacred fact. The widespread and justified disgust over the invasion of the US Capitol by Trump supporters on January 6, 2021 is based on the belief that power rests on ballots and not violence.

There is no clearer distinction between democracies and the rest. The losers must respect the result. If they dispute it, they should use legal methods. But generally speaking, if they don’t like the person in power, they have to wait until the next election.

There is hardly a politician or commentator in Britain who has not said this at some point in his or her life. It’s called “loser consent.” Our ordered lives depend on it and we cannot betray it here or abroad.

But now we come to the big exception. In February 2014, a violent gang infiltrated and came to dominate the originally genuine democratic protests in the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

There is much darkness to these bitter days, including the mysterious shootings of mob members. Let’s say there is a serious dispute about who was responsible, but it has not yet been resolved.

In a leaked (and undisputed) telephone conversation, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet told EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton that there was “increasing understanding” that “behind the snipers was not Yanukovych, but someone from the new coalition’.

A UN report (published on July 15, 2014) concluded that 103 protesters and 20 police officers were killed in these events. I believe at least some of the demonstrators were armed, and the deaths of twenty police officers indicate quite heavy violence on the part of the demonstrators.

Amid all this bloodshed, two serious attempts were made to reach a peaceful, lawful outcome. The first was destroyed, perhaps deliberately, when protesters responded to it on Tuesday, February 18, by setting fire to Yanukovych’s party headquarters. On the night of Thursday, February 20, the foreign ministers of Germany, Poland and France flew to Kiev to conclude a deal with the controversial Ukrainian president.

On February 21, that deal was signed by the president and three leading members of the anti-Yanukovych opposition, in the presence of the three EU ministers.

Yanukovych offered a rewrite of the constitution to suit the opposition; a new government; early presidential elections (by December 2014); and an impartial investigation into the violence (which there never was). All parties refrained from using force.

Anti-government protesters guard the perimeter of Independence Square in February 2014 in Kiev, Ukraine

But that Friday evening, the deal was presented to the crowd in the Maidan, an unelected body with no constitutional or democratic authority. They certainly did not represent the eastern part of the country.

Their leaders rejected the proposal and threatened to “take up arms and go to Yanukovych’s residence” if he did not resign by the next morning. The opposition leaders who had signed the deal crumbled and made no effort to defend it against the screaming anger of the crowd.

Yanukovych, whose security protection had melted away, left Kiev. But he did not resign or leave the country. A recent book by highly respected Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy shows beyond doubt that the elected president was still in office and in Ukraine when parliament voted to depose him. The vote was illegal because the parliamentarians did not have the votes required by the constitution. But they continued anyway.

Antidemocratic violence was thus followed by lawlessness. The offer of early elections was brushed aside (were the crowd afraid their faction would lose them?). For example, a mob overthrew a legitimate head of state. And here comes the shocking test. Western countries, including Britain, should have condemned this action. Normally they are vigilant defenders of justice and democracy all over the world, right? But in this case they approved the coup.

The then Secretary of State, William Haag, made a completely incorrect statement in the House of Commons on March 4, 2014. He said Yanukovych had been deposed “with the very large majorities required by the constitution.” This is simply not true. And so the future Lord Hague’s next claim that ‘it is wrong to question the legitimacy of the new authorities’ has seriously misled Parliament.

I have discussed this with Lord Haag. After it became clear that he could not properly defend his actions, he stopped answering and fell silent. Pathetically, an awkward letter I sent to his official address was returned to me, adorned with a sticker stating that he was not known there. If we had a real opposition in this country he would never have been able to get away with this. But we don’t do that.

The events of February 2014 divided Ukraine and started a nasty little war in the east of the country, in which (among other tragedies and horrors) many civilians died at the hands of the Ukrainian military. The disgusting Russian invasion of two years ago, indefensible and barbaric, was the second phase of the war, not its beginning.

Of course, I don’t know who was behind Yanukovych’s overthrow. There were all kinds of Western politicians and intelligence services hanging around Kiev at the time. And the West has flagrantly betrayed its own principles by condoning and forgiving the unpleasant event. But of course that does not prove that any Western country supported the coup against Yanukovych.

Yet I believe that any outside force that supported this coup is as guilty of aggression and warmongering as Russia’s Putin. Think about that as you listen to all those loud, safe voices demanding that we continue to fuel this war, where Ukrainians are dying every day for democratic principles that we do not, in fact, support.