It depends how far you want to go back in answer to your question.
In 2010, Yanukovych won the election.
Blue areas Yanukovych, which roughly encompasses the Luhansk and Donetsk and the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the regions that voted to cede from Ukraine plus Odessa and Crimea.
Things are moving along until late 2013 when Yanukovych picked an economic agreement with Russia over the EU - something a democratically elected government can do.
There were demonstration led by the far right. \if people didn't agree with Yanukovych decision, why didn't they wait for an election to show that displeasure and campaign to vote him out?
"To fight, kill, fulfill the tasks of the West" - "Bandera Readings" in Kiev, Ukraine
During demonstrations Odessa in May 2014, pro and anti Maidan demonstrators clashed, and to cause chaos, the far right put snipers on rooftops and ordered them to shoot at people.
https://youtu.be/wR1NFI6TBH0
The hidden truth about Ukraine - Part 2
"During the Maidan coup 48 trade unionists were killed in Odessa".
Lucy Gatsby
@LucyGatsby
·
Sep 2
‘Officially, 48 people died, but I think it was significantly more.’ Igor Polovnev, a former resident of Odessa, who found himself in the House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014, told what he saw with his own eyes".
The US steps in and discusses who they want as leader in Ukraine - including Nuland saying **ck the EU- interfering in a democratic election. Including saying 'Biden is willing'. Seems like Old Joe has been involved in interfering in UKraine politics since 2014. I think his son was allegedly up to his neck in something.
Recorded conversation between Asst. Sec. of State Victoria Nuland and Amb. Jeffery Pyatt
This video was originally published on 7 February 2014.
A pogrom was launched against those Russian speakers in the Donbass, and elsewhere, and they took up arms to defend themselves, proclaiming a Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics.
Poroshenko was elected in May 2014.
"Ukraine's previous President, Poroshenko, and his policy on Donbass: "We will have jobs—they will not (Russian speakers). We will have pensions—they will not (Russian speakers). [....] Our children will go to schools and kindergartens—theirs (Russian speakers) will hide in the basements (cellars)."
Is it any wonder they took up arms to protect themselves against such a president that was hell bent on destroying Russian speaking people.
"The
Minsk agreements were a series of international agreements which sought to end the
Donbas war fought between
armed Russian separatist groups and
Armed Forces of Ukraine, with
Russian regular forces playing a central part.
[1] The first, known as the
Minsk Protocol, was drafted in 2014 by the
Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, consisting of Ukraine,
Russia, and the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE),
[2][3][4] with mediation by the leaders of
France and
Germany in the so-called
Normandy Format. After extensive talks in
Minsk,
Belarus, the agreement was signed on 5 September 2014 by representatives of the Trilateral Contact Group and, without recognition of their status, by the then-leaders of the self-proclaimed
Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and
Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). This agreement followed multiple previous attempts to stop the fighting in the region and aimed to implement an immediate
ceasefire.
The agreement failed to stop fighting,
[5] and was thus followed with a revised and updated agreement,
Minsk II, which was signed on 12 February 2015.
[6] This agreement consisted of a package of measures, including a ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line, release of
prisoners of war, constitutional reform in Ukraine granting self-government to certain areas of Donbas and restoring control of the state border to the Ukrainian government".
Since the civil war started in 2014 there has been 14 000 deaths, mostly in the Donbass. The Minsk Agreement was supposed to bring peace, but the Ukraine President Poroshenko, decided not to follow through with it but launched aggression after aggression against those in the Donbass. Aided by the Nazi Azov Brigade, the fascist loving Kraken Regiment and the Hitler adoring Right Sector (trained and armed by NATO). Who want all Russian speaking people to be rounded up, frog marched to the border with Russia, and dumped there.
Those in the Donbass were not prepared to be forced out, by the gun barrel, from the place they live in, have their lands, houses, factories, buildings etc. stolen.
For all the chatter of 'get the Russians out' where should those in the Donbass go, who have taken up arms to protect themselves? NATO interfered and intervened on the side of the Ukraine government in the civil war and Russia has intervened on the side of those in the Donbass and elsewhere. Those in the Donbass have made it abundantly clear that they are not prepared to live in a fascist state that bans political parties, threatens the ability of organised labour to function properly, summary justice carried out by Nazi loving thugs, forced them to abandon their language and culture and discriminated against them just because they want to speak Russian. They will never be ruled by Kiev.